Editor: 

Reading The Chronicle is one of the highlights of my week, something I usually save for a weekend and a cup of coffee. The content is rich, the community is engaging; but I am dismayed at the increase in AI advertisements. 

This is a call to local businesses. AI “art” has no place in our local newspaper (or anywhere for that matter, but that’s another conversation). I understand the positives from a busy business owner's perspective: a time-saving way to check something off your to-do list. But if you see the value in advertising in The Chronicle, surely you see the value in a human being crafting your advertisement. 

Spend your AI subscription money on your human counterparts. Hire a graphic designer, a marketer, a local artist. 

Plus, all your ads look the same and frankly, they don’t look good. 

Mackenzie Blue

Harwich

Editor:

The League of Women Voters of the Cape Cod Area urges a yes vote on ballot questions 4 and 9. 

Ballot question 4 will allow election day voter registration. It will eliminate the arbitrary deadline of 10 days before an election to register. And it will allow registered voters who encounter a problem at the polls to fix that problem and cast a vote that will count. Almost half the states in the country have Election Day voter registration. It’s time for Massachusetts to join them.

Ballot question 9 will keep in place the firearms law passed by the legislature in 2024. That law banned “ghost guns,” outlawed devices that turn semi-automatic weapons into machine guns, modernized red flag laws, and strengthened Massachusetts violence prevention programs. A yes vote will keep Massachusetts safer.

Please vote, either in person at early election days or on Nov. 3 or use a mail-in ballot if you have requested one. Mail that one in early or drop it in your town’s election dropbox. 

Thank you for caring about Democracy and participating in our most important task as citizens, voting.

Suzanne Brock, legislative chair

League of Women Voters of the Cape Cod Area

Editor:

No one is suggesting board members can’t have opinions or express them. But, opinions cannot replace facts. Doing so exposes the town to expensive legal reversals and more importantly, needlessly delays housing for those in need.

The fundamental issue seems to be a lack of understanding of the different roles the affordable housing trust and the ZBA have: the trust determines community housing needs and selects the developer, not the ZBA — their statutory duty under Chapter 40B is to weigh peer-reviewed expert testimony and negotiate reasonable conditions — not dismiss expert data simply because it supports an approval that they would personally rather deny.

A prolonged legal battle carries a myriad of costs, and none of us can quantify the individual suffering it creates. We are choosing to delay desperately needed housing for working families, seniors, and local employees by more than a year, only to squander our shared resources on avoidable legal fees.

Karolyn McClelland 

South Chatham

Editor:

Massachusetts did not develop its current approach to gun safety by chance. Over many years, lawmakers, law enforcement, advocates, medical professionals and communities have worked to strengthen firearm laws, close gaps and respond to emerging risks.

That effort continued in 2024 when the legislature passed the Firearms Modernization Law. The law updated existing safeguards to address changes in firearm technology and circumstances that older laws were not designed to anticipate. 

Among its provisions, the law addresses ghost guns and 3D-printed firearms by establishing serialization and registration requirements for firearms manufactured or assembled in Massachusetts and restricting unlicensed manufacture using 3D printers. It strengthens oversight and training requirements involving gun dealers and licensing authorities. It updates firearm licensing and safety-training requirements and modernizes the state’s assault-weapons framework.

The law also expands Massachusetts’ Extreme Risk Protection Order, commonly called the Red Flag law, including who may petition a court for an order temporarily restricting firearm access when a person is found to pose a risk of physically harming themselves or others. It addresses devices including bump stocks, trigger cranks and other rapid-fire trigger activators, and establishes firearm restrictions in certain government buildings, courts and election or polling locations.

These provisions reflect a basic challenge facing public policy: laws written years ago may not address new technologies, products or methods of circumventing existing requirements. Updating the law was intended to address those changes while maintaining a legal framework for lawful firearm ownership.

The 2024 law now faces a statewide repeal referendum. On Nov. 3, Massachusetts voters will see Question 9, Firearms Regulation, on the ballot. A yes vote keeps the 2024 law in effect, while a no vote repeals it. The decision therefore involves more than any single provision. Voters will be deciding whether the safeguards enacted in 2024 should remain part of Massachusetts law.

Joanne DiFrancesco, board member

Cape Cod Grandmothers Against Gun Violence

Editor:

Leaf blower noise is overwhelmingly annoying, but that noise pales in comparison to living in Ukraine today.

Count your blessings.

Mike Rice 

South Wellfleet

Editor:

This is a wonderful season of the year! Unfortunately, many families are struggling to meet basic needs.

Our Harwich Children's Fund helps to provide holiday necessities to many children in the Monomoy Regional School District and the early childhood program. If you would like to become a HCF Elf and help us shop, please attend our next meeting scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 12 at the Harwich Community Center at 6 p.m.

You can also contact us at the harwichchildrensfund@gmail.com or call Sheila House at 774-212-3805.

Thank you for your support and your willingness to bring holiday cheers to so many children.

Angelina Raneo Chilaka

Harwich

Editor:

A group of us were visiting Chatham as guests of the Bazzles’ on Shore Road. Last night, one of us experienced a medical emergency. The local police, firefighters and EMTs were there in minutes and took total control. Each person was professional and reassuring to us. They transported our friend to Cape Cod Hospital which we learned is a stroke center. After getting immediate and correct treatment, he was flown to Mass. General in Boston, where he remains.

We write to express our gratitude for exceptional medical care from your local community healthcare professionals.

We hope local residents appreciate their services.

The Boones, Anchorage, Ky.

The Burtons, Atlanta, Ga.

Editor:  

Cape Cod faces a paradox.We protect our historic buildings, coastlines, ponds and wetlands. These protections, together with soaring land and building costs, are pushing out the nurses, teachers, tradespeople and young families who maintain the Cape. Housing rose three times the rate of weekly wages between 2019 and 2021, and we are left with a seasonal, aging region that struggles to staff its own services.

Preservation cannot mean turning the Cape into a museum. A place without a year-round community has no one left to care for it.

Wastewater is the hinge. Failing septic systems are degrading our ponds and estuaries, and sewers also make sensible housing possible. The Water Protection Fund awarded in excess of $105 million to 10 towns for wastewater projects in 2025. We should use that investment to guide growth in village centers and established neighborhoods and protect everything else.

We must reuse before we build. Underused strip malls and commercial sites can become year-round homes without involving open land. Accessory apartments can fit into established neighborhoods. Design review, including old King’s Highway District, must focus on scale and appearance rather than blocking modest comparable housing.

Unfortunately, none of this works town by town. Nitrogen follows watersheds-not town boundaries. Towns must follow the Cape Cod Commission’s model bylaws instead of reinventing the wheel. This requires a regional housing trust and one coordinated permitting process across federal, state, county and town review. We must reply to those who worry that housing stresses a fragile peninsula and others are frustrated with layers of approval which increase costs and delay. Both deserve acknowledgement, respect and answers. The question is not whether we preserve the Cape; it is where we build, how fast and for whom.

If we save this scenic museum but lose the community, we have lost the Cape

Mark I. Berson

Orleans

Editor:

Last week a guest editorial encouraged Chatham to “Fight Pennrose’s Appeal” of the zoning board of appeal’s denial of its Meetinghouse Road comprehensive permit application. The reason? Voter opposition. Really?

In 2003, a unanimous town meeting declared it the policy of Chatham to achieve the 10 percent Subsidized Housing Index target. In 2007 the select board declared it to be the policy of Chatham to promote 40B projects. Two universally officially approved housing production plans (2018 and 2024) reinforced that commitment. The current select board goals and objectives (dated Jan. 6, 2026) declare a year-round housing objective that “Over the next five years 200 units of affordable/attainable/workforce housing will be added around Chatham.”  

In 2021 a substantial majority of town meeting appropriated $1.6 million for the purchase of the Buckley property on Main Street that is the site of  the Pennrose 1533 Main St. project for 32 units of affordable housing and 16 units of attainable housing. In 2022 the select board, acting as the affordable housing trust, purchased the Meetinghouse Road property at a discount for affordable housing.

Both boards approved the RFPs which produced three proposals for Main Street and two for Meetinghouse Road. Both boards recommended and the town manager awarded both projects to Pennrose. The contract negotiation for both projects had participation from the town manager, the select board, the affordable housing trust board and the finance committee. 

The ZBA approved the comprehensive permit for Main Street. And then one voting seat on the ZBA changed. Four ZBA members would have granted the Meetinghouse Road permit. But one change in the voting members allowed a minority of the ZBA to deny the permit.

The writer talks about a “manipulative minority.” He got that right. A “manipulative minority” is seeking to obstruct and defeat a project rooted in 20-plus years of Chatham official process that involved everyone — democratically and in collaborative pursuit of Town policy.

Mike Schell

Chatham