BREWSTER – The town’s charter, drafted four years ago, at last won approval by the state legislature on Jan. 5. “We’ve been talking about a charter for decades,” now Town Manager Peter Lombardi said at the Jan. 9 select board meeting. Approved by voters at the May 2021 town meeting, the charter “serves as our local constitution” as local government becomes increasingly complex over time. The char...

BREWSTER – More residents are requesting municipal aid to pay rising housing and childcare costs. Housing assistance requests were up during the second quarter of 2022, with 77 requests for assistance in October, Housing Coordinator Jill Scalise said at the affordable housing trust’s December meeting. “There were a lot of questions about the [Oct. 27] housing forum, which is a good thing, and a lot of quest...

Hoffman Urges ‘Changing Tone’ of Wing Island Boardwalk Discussions BREWSTER – Horsley-Witten, the engineering group hired to explore building a raised boardwalk from Drummer Boy Park to Wing Island, has been told to stop design work and remain in a holding pattern. Residents resoundingly voted down the Drummer Boy Park Master Plan at the Nov. 14 special town meeting. Boardwalk opponents formed a group calle...

BREWSTER – The proprietors of Apt Cape Cod Farm-to-Table at 2149 Main St. have closed up shop and left town, leaving building owner Art Arnold "holding the bag.” The restaurant made the national news in July 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Apt temporarily closed for breakfast to treat employees to a day of kindness after impatient customers were verbally abusive toward the staff. “The property ...

BREWSTER – In September 2021, voters approved the $26 million acquisition of the former Cape Cod Sea Camps from the Delahanty family , marking the largest land purchase in the town's history.A month later, voters approved a debt exclusion to cover the cost of a bond issue to buy the flagship 55 acres and its 800 feet of Cape Cod Bay beach frontage, plus a 66-acre Long Pond parcel off Route 137. Residents made mo...

BREWSTER – Having graduated from the University of Maryland in May with a bachelor’s in Persian studies, Isabelle Lareau decided she was up for an adventure. Lareau is joining the Peace Corps Jan. 18. She’ll spend a few days’ orientation in San Francisco before training onsite for three months as an education volunteer, co-teaching English for two years in Timor-Leste, among the easternmost Indonesian Islands. ...

BREWSTER – Members of the Great Cape Co-op, formerly Great Cape Herbs, have been asked to produce permits that they say show that alleged zoning violations on the Route 6A property don’t exist. The members are appealing April 29 and Sept. 9 cease-and-desist orders citing principal owner Stephen Brown for zoning violations. David Schlesinger, a co-op member, appeared on behalf of Brown at a Dec. 13 virtual Z...

BREWSTER – Most Brewster residents live in the Pleasant Bay Watershed, the largest estuary on Cape Cod, the state’s first permitted watershed in the state. But will those who live in smaller, adjacent watersheds be required to upgrade their septic systems? Mark Nelson, a principal with Horsley Witten Consulting in Sandwich, on Dec. 7 shared details about the state Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP’...

BREWSTER – The Bay Property Planning Committee on Dec. 6 held its kickoff meeting with Reed-Hilderbrand, an award-winning, Cambridge landscape architecture firm, to take inventory of buildings at the former Cape Cod Sea Camps site adjacent to First Light Beach. The group divided their work into three phases: the first, two to three months of fact-finding, including an onsite public forum with Brewster resident...

BREWSTER – Meeting jointly with the finance committee Monday, the select board spent nearly two hours discussing an upcoming Jan. 10 debt exclusion vote in Brewster, Orleans, Eastham and Wellfleet to cover $28.1 million in Nauset Regional High School renovation project construction cost overruns. With several other big-ticket items on the horizon, officials worry about how much they can tap taxpayers. “We a...

BREWSTER – Your pup could be Top Dog in town and wear the coveted 2023 #1 dog tag. Nominations are now open for Brewster’s fourth annual Top Dog Contest, and voting gets underway after New Year’s. Licensed canine contestants need to live in Brewster. Their humans may enter the contest at town hall by Dec. 31. Voting will be held Jan. 2 to 20, and the winner announced Jan. 23. The contest is administered by Tow...

BREWSTER – William Grafton of Chatham signed on as Brewster conservation administrator Nov. 8, and the Conservation Commission announced his appointment at its Nov. 22 meeting. Grafton most recently served as Marshfield conservation administrator for six years, where he oversaw the management of about 3,000 acres of land, including 2,500 acres of open space. He earned his master’s in environmental science at th...