Mary Frances Gray of Chatham and Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., a beloved daughter, sister, aunt and friend left this earth on August 20th after a battle with cancer.       She was born November 9, 1959 in Worcester to the late Lawrence Gray and Marion Gray, and moved to Chatham as a child. She was a graduate of Chatham High School class of 1978.       She leaves behind her mother, her brother David and sister Nancy...

ORLEANS — David Currier is in the midst of having solar panels installed on the roofs of his business and his home. “Electric rates aren't going down,” the owner of Orleans Bowling Center said last week. “Those big companies don't like making less money.” Currier, who's also a selectman, is working with BlueSel Solar to realize his dream of generating his own power. He grew up with one of the company's sa...

ORLEANS — Attention, developers: affordable housing units could be built at the Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank operations center campus on West Road, according to a study presented last night (Aug. 28) to the board of selectmen. Two concepts, one with 45 units and the other with 51, are in no sense a fixed plan to be carried out by builders. They express the elements that the town's affordable housing comm...

CHATHAM —One-hundred-and-one years ago, 130 men were lost when the Coast Guard Cutter Tampa was torpedoed by a World War I German U-boat. This week, the family of one of those men received his Purple Heart. Admiral Andrew Tiongson, center, presents the Purple Heart certificate to Steven (left) and Brad Finch.  Congressman William Keating (behind) wa...

CHATHAM – To say the least, Tony Guthrie was disappointed that food trucks were not allowed downtown during this summer's Mondays on Main music nights. He feels having them there would have attracted more people and injected some fun into the event; instead, a few people were able to block food trucks by claiming they'd take customers away from downtown restaurants. “Not everybody wants to sit in a restaurant,...

CHATHAM — When it comes to providing emergency medical services, firefighters do what they can to help their patients make a complete recovery. But Chatham Firefighter Paramedic Michael Lopriore is going the extra mile—with a dog leash in his hand. Lopriore and his colleagues were repeatedly called to help a resident suffering from a severe medical condition. “It was kind of an ongoing thing. It was getti...

CHATHAM – The Chatham Merchants Association's Art in the Park exhibit ended last Friday, and while the auction of the painted and decorated Cape Cod and mermaid silhouettes did not bring in as much as Sharks in the Park did in previous years, the organizer are pleased with the final tally. “I think we did great, we really did well,” commented Susan Dimm, president of the merchants group. Online bids for the...

CHATHAM – Working under a directive from the board of selectmen, the planning board has begun investigating ways to limit the size and mass of new homes. Last week the board met with two members of the planning board in Truro, which recently enacted a residential house size bylaw. Chatham has no similar bylaw, although controlling the mass and size of residential construction is called for in the town's compre...

CHATHAM – For most of the summer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife staff and volunteers monitoring nesting shorebirds on South Monomoy Island have been living in the historic Monomoy Light keeper's house, which underwent a top-to-bottom renovation over the past few years. But on Aug. 7, everyone left the island as poor weather approached. When they returned a week later, they discovered evidence of vandalism to the 1849...

CHATHAM — At low tide, the depth of the entrance channel to Outermost Harbor is measured in inches, not feet. That’s good news for beachgoers who like to wade across without getting their knees wet, but it spells big trouble for Outermost Harbor Marine, whose customers can find their boats stuck at the dock until high tide. The owners of the marina have started an online petition seeking the town’s support...

Support ‘Helping Neighbors’ NORTH HARWICH — If the goal of a food pantry was just to fill bellies, the shelves would be stocked with starchy foods like instant mashed potatoes and stuffing. But the Family Pantry of Cape Cod focuses on providing nutritious foods as a means of helping clients get healthier and live better. Key to that philosophy has been a concerted effort to increase the amount of fresh ...

HARWICH PORT — It took first responders many hours to control the public safety threat after a tanker truck flipped over and spilled gasoline on Sisson Road last month. But it will take cleanup crews much longer to try and reverse the environmental damage caused by the accident. A New Hampshire environmental engineering firm has completed an immediate response action plan following the July 18 spill, outlini...

HARWICH — In 1904 Caleb Chase, a West Harwich businessman, provided the town with a $10,000 grant in his will to assist residents in need. More than 100 years later that gift has grown to nearly $500,000, and the trustees who oversee the fund say it is underutilized and its guidelines should be changed so its use can be expanded. Grants to local residents are administered by the board of selectmen after screen...

HARWICH PORT— There was a surprise meet and greet on Saturday as people walking the sidewalk ran into former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden, a front runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, was in town for a fundraiser. It was meant to be a relatively quiet event, but Biden exited his vehicle about a block and a half away from the gathering point of his supporters, Perks Coffee S...

HARWICH – The old East Harwich fire station will be taken down by late September. There were plans to leave the old station in place after the new one is finished in mid to late September so that it could be used by the contractor on the East Harwich wastewater project, but those plans have changed. “That was the plan until about an hour ago,” Fire Chief Norman Clarke, Jr said on Thursday. Clarke stated ...