ORLEANS – An override request is heading to this spring's town election to offset the town's higher-than-anticipated contribution to the Nauset Regional School District budget for the coming fiscal year. Orleans has 27 additional students attending Nauset schools for the coming 2022-2023 school year. As a result, the town's share of the regional school budget is $627,032, or 2.3 percent, higher than what the t...

ORLEANS – A request for funding to restore the Orleans Community Center on Main Street will not go before town meeting voters this spring as hoped. But advocates behind the project aren't about to throw in the towel on plans for the historic building. "We are committed to making this happen," Alan McClennen, who chairs the town's community center renovation task force, told the select board March 16. McClen...

ORLEANS - School officials in Nauset didn't have to look far to find their next high school principal. Patrick Clark, hired as an assistant principal at Nauset Regional High School in August, will take the reins as principal effective July 1, the district announced in a press release. Clark will assume principal duties from Chris Ellsasser, who informed the Nauset Regional School Committee in December of hi...

CHATHAM – George Olmsted III, passed away March 12, 2022, in Chatham. He was predeceased by his wife of 58 years, Mary Zisette Olmsted, and his daughter, Mary Wyatt of Bedford, N.H. He was born in Cambridge and grew up in Chestnut Hill, educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and graduated from Williams College in 1955 with a BA in American History and Literature. At Williams he was a member of Saint Anthony Hall and...

Sandra L. (Hadvab) Pastuszak of Harwich (formerly of South Windsor, Conn.) and wife of Stanley J. Pastuszak, passed away peacefully with her husband at her side on March 13, 2022. Born September 27, 1950 in New Britain, Conn. she was the daughter of the late Michael Hadvab and Doris (Eliason) Hadvab.  She graduated from Central Connecticut State University with a BA degree in teaching.  She loved teaching little ...

Peter J. Laubenstein passed away in his sleep on August 30th, 2021, in Chatham at the age of 70, with his furry friend, Oliver, by his side. Peter was born on August 1st, 1951, in Boston and attended school in Barrington, R.I. Peter enjoyed traveling and spent brief stints living in Las Vegas, N.V., Scottsdale, Ariz. and Florida. Not one to enjoy the heat or dry air of Arizona, or the humidity of Florida, Peter a...

George Eric Stuteville, 68, of Orleans, died on March 7, 2022, surrounded by family, friends, and his beloved pets at his home on Cape Cod. George was born on Oct. 9, 1953, in Evansville, Ind., to George and Norma Patricia (Henry) Stuteville. George  (whose family nickname was Bo) was a preemie and so tiny his parents bedded him in a dresser drawer. Later, he was joined by a brother and sister.  In time, he excel...

Elizabeth May (Gordon) Hanafee left us on March 2, 2022. Liz was born in Highland Park, Michigan on April 9, 1936 to loving parents Fred and Georgina (McNab) Gordon. An only child, she was the center of her parents’ world.   Liz worked at General Motors for 15 years, where she met her husband Michael Hanafee, the love of her life. They married in 1994, retired from GM and moved from Warren, Michigan, to Chatham. ...

Joan Lincoln Bulkley, 93, of Chatham, passed away peacefully on March 9, 2022. Following her retirement from Xerox Corporation in Connecticut, Joan and her husband David relocated to her family home in Chatham, where they enjoyed travel, bridge, gardening, and their miniature schnauzers. Joan was past president of the Women’s Club of Chatham and a member of the Monomoy Yacht Club. She served as a docent at the A...

Supports Both Housing And Open Space CHATHAM — With dueling town meeting articles seeking to map out the future of 17 acres of town-owned land on Middle Road, the select board this week threw its support behind a compromise plan that sets aside four acres to create housing units, saving the remainder as conservation land. Both articles will be on the annual warrant, so the town’s voters will have the final s...

CHATHAM — One hundred years ago this year, Chatham decided it was time to get tough on crime. Voters debated the idea carefully before deciding to create the town’s own police force, and throughout 2022, the Chatham Police Department will be celebrating its centennial. Cape Cod in the 1920s was not exactly a hotbed of criminal activity. Orleans, Harwich and surrounding towns routinely appropriated $100 annua...

CHATHAM – Members of the council on aging board want nothing to do with the former Chatham Health and Swim Club property. On Monday the board voted unanimously against adding the shuttered health club on Crowell Road to a feasibility study now being conducted on two sites where a new senior center could be located. Board members said linking the health club property to a new senior center could endanger a posi...

CHATHAM – The community preservation committee is recommending that significantly less money be devoted to the town's affordable housing trust fund than the trust board requested. Town officials had asked that 80 percent of this year's community preservation act revenue – $1.2 million – be directed to the trust, but last week community preservation committee (CPC) members voted to recommend that voters provide...

CHATHAM — The select board is less than enthusiastic about a plan seeking up to $200,000 to create a new gear storage area for a small handful of commercial fishermen. Voters at the May annual town meeting will see an article seeking an as yet undetermined amount of money for the project, which relocates the fishermen’s storage area from its current site at the airport to a proposed new location by the waste...

CHATHAM – The Eldredge Public Library is already a beloved institution. The goal of a new five-year strategic plan release last week is to make it even more of a centerpiece of the community. The plan, required in order for the library to qualify for state and federal grants, includes five broad goals with specific actions identified by the staff to meet the goals. “Some of this is already in progress,” sai...