BREWSTER – Voters will be asked to formally place Wing Island under the jurisdiction of the conservation commission at the May annual town meeting after the select board rejected placing a formal conservation restriction on the property. The decision was an outgrowth of the March 6 special town meeting at which voters endorsed protecting the Cape Cod Bay island and also directed the board not to spend any furt...

BREWSTER – The select board on Monday voted not to support a citizens’ petition asking town meeting voters to ban re-usable plastic food containers and cutlery by fall 2024. “We’re all trying to do the right thing,” Bud Ohman, co-owner of Kate’s Fried Seafood and Ice Cream, said. “I recycle every piece of cardboard in the restaurant. The last thing we need is another mandate. Try telling someone from New York th...

BREWSTER — To say Recreation Director Mike Gradone and Assistant Director Andy Havens have a lot on their minds lately is an understatement. They’re hustling. The department is hiring and interviewing candidates for new administrative positions and looking for seasonal swimming pool assistants for the former Sea Camps outdoor pool, which opens June 26. The town hopes to find outside management for the ...

BREWSTER – All three special town meeting articles won “greater than a majority” votes by an overflow-capacity crowd Monday night at Stony Brook Elementary School, effectively ending, for now at least, any further expenditures on a Wing Island boardwalk. The “yes” vote on Article 1 conveys to the select board a sense of the meeting’s position on the spending of money for the boardwalk, said Town Counsel Lauren G...

BREWSTER – It’s decision time Monday, when Brewster residents vote on three petition articles that, if passed, would effectively transfer control and ownership of the 32-acre Wing Island from the select board to the conservation commission and nix any further expenditures, designs or plans for a raised boardwalk intended to increase the area’s accessibility. Members of the town’s leadership team have floated t...

BREWSTER – The Alewife Committee on Feb. 23 chose to continue aiding the herring that migrate between Walkers and Slough ponds despite drought-induced low water levels that made last year especially challenging for juvenile herring. “There’s been an alewife committee since 1788, when the town, what was then Harwich, bought the stream,” said member Doug Erickson. “We have made many efforts over the years to imp...

BREWSTER – Nauset Schools Superintendent Brooke Clenchy said she is well aware that district towns want the schools’ fiscal 2024 operating budget increases to stay in the 3 to 3.5 percent range. Yet “the cost-drivers that we’re up against, we can’t change them,” Clency said at the Brewster Elementary Schools’ Feb. 16 education committee meeting. “I know that we’ve been asked to try to come in at that 3 to 3...

Frustrated Residents Want March 6 Special Town Meeting Vote To Settle The Issue BREWSTER – Six months into the Wing Island access debate, residents’ frustration on both sides of the issue was palpable and very vocal at the Feb. 9 public forum. “Leave Wing Island alone,” said Brenda Locke. "I do not want to see it become a tourist attraction. We don’t have many natural areas left on Cape Cod. I think it dese...

BREWSTER – Brewster will partner with the town of Eastham in fiscal year 2024 on an intermunicipal agreement to share planning staff, Town Manager Peter Lombardi announced at the Feb. 6 select board meeting. In addition, Brewster’s proposed 2024 operating budget seeks eight “targeted staff increases.” The town is looking to expand the weekly hours of three employees: the building inspector, the Crosby property...

BREWSTER – Eddy Elementary students in grades 3 to 5 are separating organics from soiled paper waste at lunchtime in the school cafeteria. Meg Morris, chair of the Brewster Recycling Commission, and Eddy science coordinator Patsy Marchant introduced the new program last month during an assembly about waste reduction. Commissioners Pat Semple and Annette Graczewski, and Assistant Town Manager Donna Kalinick als...

Cape Cod Global Outreach is again teaming up with local chambers of commerce to fill and deliver free reflective backpacks containing bike lights, personal care items and other supplies to visiting seasonal workers. Spearheaded by the Revs. Catherine and Matt Boyle, who live in Harwich Port and work at Mid-Cape Worship Center in Dennis Port, Global Outreach volunteers delivered 1,763 backpacks to J-1 employers...

BREWSTER – The Animal Rescue League (ARL) of Boston’s Cape Cod shelter has had an influx of 75 cats that need new homes. “They’re from a couple different overcrowding situations in Norfolk and Bristol counties, where there were lots of animals in the home — too many for the caretaker to be able to care for,” said Mike DeFina, ARL’s media relations officer, who grew up in Eastham. “We had been working with t...