ORLEANS — Uncle Harvey's sick, and those who care are discussing what to do about it. The 7.5-acre pond south of Pochet Road has been flagged for harmful algal blooms by the state Department of Environmental Protection, and the state Department of Public Health has issued advisories to avoid contact with the water. Since the turn of the century, volunteers have been monitoring water quality in Uncle Harve...

ORLEANS — Jon Fuller believes he's had his turn at the tiller and won't run for reelection to the board of selectmen in May. “I've already done six terms,” he said. “That's enough.” Fuller, a leading proponent of downtown sewering, noted that he's been working on wastewater issues for the past 14 years. “Finally we've got some pipe in the ground and are moving forward,” he said of the Main Street sewer work ...

ORLEANS — The Academy Playhouse is staging its greatest production yet – a $4 million fund-raising campaign to upgrade and expand its theater and school. The historic features of the grand old building at the top of the hill off Main Street, built by shipwrights to serve as town hall, will be preserved while modern touches such an elevator, an adequate number of restrooms, and a full basement will be added. ...

ORLEANS — It's not often that the selectmen are asked to impose the death penalty. “Humane euthanization” was among the statutory alternatives for the board to consider Dec. 20 at a dog complaint hearing requested by Robert Swanson of 25 Lowell Dr. On Aug. 27, he was walking on that street when he saw Katherine Gulotta, of 16 Lowell Dr., walking a dog on a retractable leash. To avoid the dog, which he sai...

ORLEANS -- On his last day of work at Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank, David Willard feasted on the chocolate doughnut named in his honor at the Hole-In-One in Orleans (available in Eastham, too). Recalling that Willard always brought doughnuts to the many non-profit board meetings he attended as the bank's director of community relations, Richard Brothers, the retired president and CEO of Cape and Islands Un...

ORLEANS — In 2017, the town started delivering on some promises it made to itself while preparing to make more. A new police station rose quickly at the corner of Eldredge Park Way and Route 28 while a consolidated DPW/natural resources headquarters began construction at the transfer station. Voters kept funds flowing to water quality projects and approved construction of the core of the downtown sewer colle...

ORLEANS — Selectmen will invite the finance committee and the Orleans Water Quality Advisory Panel (OWQAP) to their Jan. 10 meeting for the unveiling of a revised financial model for paying the capital costs of a downtown sewer system. That decision came at the end of a discussion Dec. 13 on whether the consensus-building OWQAP process, which brought eight community organizations together as stakeholders for...

ORLEANS — As storm after storm battered the Caribbean this year, a sense of hopelessness was part of the reaction to the horrific destruction. But hope, as Emily Dickinson knew, is “the thing with feathers,” and hope took wing on the islands and in the classrooms of Orleans Elementary School. Eager to help, especially after two children from the storm-ravaged British Virgin Islands started attending OES, stu...

ORLEANS — Selectmen are ready to work with the affordable housing committee on a request to town meeting to help address the community housing needs spotlighted in a recent report. “I don't want to see us take our foot off the gas for funding,” Selectman David Currier said at the Dec. 6 board meeting. George Meservey, director of planning and community development, and Tom Johnson, chair of the affordable...

ORLEANS — Local organizations are seeking a combined total of more than $1 million in Community Preservation funds for historic preservation, community housing and recreation initiatives. Over the next months, the community preservation committee will interview applicants and make recommendations. Town meeting will have the final say in May. Topping the wish list is a $500,000 request from the Academy of Per...

You could do a whole December’s worth of shopping with one stop at the Orleans Farmers Market in the cafeteria of Nauset Regional Middle School on a Saturday morning. And everything you’d carry out is locally sourced and perhaps even benefits a charity. If December shopping isn’t for you, this market will continue every Saturday through the end of April. Then it returns to its outdoor venue at Depot Square. ...

ORLEANS — What services are as basic to residents as the sea breezes they inhale just by living here? Which are the ones they should pay for each time they use them? Selectmen spent an evening Nov. 28 delving into the old question of which town services should be supported by all taxpayers and which by user fees, searching for a combination that would take the pressure off an annual operating budget that can...