ORLEANS — The selectmen and board of health will hold a joint public information session Sept. 10 at 5:30 p.m. about a proposed Pay As You Throw (PAYT) trash disposal plan that could start as early as June 1. Members want to hear what citizens have to say on the possible change. “If I were to make a motion tonight, it would include the words, 'Time is of the essence,'” health board member Sims McGrath said. ...

ORLEANS — The atrium at the entrance of Orleans Elementary School will be full of books and displays when students return to classes this week. One giant “book” was opened to two blank pages. “What will your story be this year?” literary specialist Martha Jenkins said students will be asked. “Children will be writing their own story of the school year.” Adding their stories to the “book” celebrates indivi...

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...

ORLEANS — If you think Cape Cod doesn't have a prayer of solving its housing crisis, think again. Prayer itself is one of the elements involved in an effort to create short-term housing for people who find themselves without shelter during one of life's transitions. Heidi Scheffler and Stephane Ruault of Brewster, parishioners of St. Joan of Arc Roman Catholic Church in Orleans, have been praying, studying, ...

Several longtime teachers of the Academy of Performing Arts school in Orleans will be offering their classes at the Cape Cod Theatre Company/Harwich Junior Theatre's Arts Center in Harwich Center next month. The switch is more fallout from the financial difficulties of the Academy, which laid off production staff at its theater in January. The venue has since reopened for shows, and a modern version of “Romeo ...

ORLEANS - When he was a young man, Mark Vecchione of Eastham loved to hang out at Rock Harbor and see the fishing boats. On Sunday, as they’ve done for the last decade since he was killed in action in Iraq, volunteers held a day-long fishing trip in his memory. The fleet had a proper send-off from those aboard the Gold Medal Lifeboat CG36500. MARCIA...

ORLEANS — The town created an affordable housing trust fund board to move quickly when likely properties come on the market, but members are looking carefully before they leap. The board, with approval of the selectmen, funded the purchase in May of a half-acre lot at 15 Quanset Road on which Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod will build a two-bedroom affordable home. It has backed analyses of the housing pote...

ORLEANS — The town's Goose Hummock bulkhead on Town Cove sees a lot of action, both by humans and nature itself. While the western bulkhead remains in good condition, the eastern one, which ties into Goose Hummock's private bulkhead, was rated “poor” in a study. “Multiple holes were observed through the timber sheets at the mudline and several large sinkholes are observable along the landward side of the str...

ORLEANS — For years, the technology has been as elusive as, well, great white sharks. Now, a system that can detect and report white sharks in real time is being tested at three Cape beaches, including Nauset. On Tuesday, the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy’s Sharktivity app reported a white shark off Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet, the site of last year’s fatal shark attack. The shark wasn’t spotted by ...

ORLEANS — They're calling it “one of the costliest purchases in the organization's nearly 50-year history,” but the Orleans Conservation Trust is making the case for buying 4.65 acres over three lots on Portaminicut Road in South Orleans. The property “could forge a vital link between existing conservation lands both south and north of the road,” OCT stated in a press release. Donors are being sought to help...

ORLEANS — Every member of the board of selectmen came to honor Barbara P. White in her home at Jack Knife Point Aug. 1. Presiding from a comfortable chair, the 104-year-old welcomed them with grace as she accepted the Boston Post Cane, traditionally given to the town's oldest resident. “We didn't want to live in Summit, N.J., so we came up here,” White said of a relationship with Orleans that became stronger...