The Cape Coddah
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☀️ Anyone Have Room for a Bridge?

☀️ Anyone Have Room for a Bridge?

Plus: No TJ's in Mashpee, for now

Cape Coddah
June 05, 2026

In partnership with

Good morning Cape Cod and Happy National Donut Day. The holiday honors the Salvation Army 'Donut Lassies' who served fried dough rings to U.S. soldiers in WWI France. The Cape has no shortage of incredible local donut spots, so support one and get yourself something glazed. 🍩

In this week’s Cape Coddah:

MV getting a new High School
Meteor plunges CC Bay
Events and live music

Let’s get to it.

🌁 Free to a Good Home: Cape Cod Bridges

Want a bridge? The federal government is officially putting both the Sagamore and Bourne bridges up for adoption. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is offering them to any public or private entity willing to cover the full cost of removing, relocating, and repurposing the 90-year-old structures.

The Sagamore stretches 1,833 feet and the Bourne is 2,684 feet, with both rising 135 feet over the Cape Cod Canal. The deadline to submit a proposal is June 26. Anyone interested needs to detail the bridges' future use, location, relocation plans, and how they'd handle the lead paint and other materials.

If no one claims them, both will be demolished as planned. Construction on the new Sagamore begins in late 2027, with the full project expected to wrap up by 2037.
Read more»

🗳️ Landslide Yes for the New High School

Martha's Vineyard just made history. The $333.5M high school renovation project, the most expensive ever proposed on the island, passed in a landslide Tuesday with 84% of voters across all six towns saying yes.

School committee members, teachers, and administrators gathered at the Portuguese-American Club in Oak Bluffs to celebrate as the results rolled in. The project will address years of issues at MVRHS, including mold, leaks, asbestos under the floor tiles, and lack of central air.

Construction is set to begin next summer and will last about five years. Some students are bummed about losing the track for a while, but most are supportive even though none of them will attend school on the finished campus. Taxpayers will pay over 30 years, but up to $75M in state reimbursement is now locked in. Read more»

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See the full trip lineup

🛰️ Iron from Space, Hiding in Cape Cod Bay

Last weekend's meteor that exploded over Cape Cod Bay is still making waves. Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution say their seismometers likely picked up the atmospheric shock wave when the space rock broke apart 31 miles above Earth on Saturday afternoon.

The signal showed up at exactly the time researchers expected, and on multiple instruments, giving them strong confidence in the detection. NASA's new analysis suggests it may have been an iron meteorite.

Some fragments likely landed on the ocean floor, and while iron meteorites are denser and more magnetic, making them easier to detect, scientists say finding them would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. The good news is, any chemical impact on the bay's marine life is expected to be minor and temporary.
Read more»

📸 @poetry_with_a_camera |📍Heritage Museums & Gardens

Tag @thecapecoddah to get your photos in the Coddah!

🐟 A New Wharf for Rock Harbor

Orleans' newly renovated Rock Harbor commercial wharf is finally open after about a year of delays. The $9M project replaced a 100-year-old bulkhead that had been deemed structurally unsafe back in 2018.

The new setup includes a 5,420-square-foot offloading dock with a crane, a public viewing platform, ship-to-shore power outlets at every slip to cut emissions, and a new sidewalk so Captain Cass customers don't have to fight for parking with commercial fishermen.

The road there wasn't easy. Brutal winters, ice over a foot thick in the harbor, and a construction crane that accidentally smashed the roof of Young's Fish Market, a beloved 1950s seafood shack that probably won't be coming back. But fishermen are happy. As one put it, the project "brought the harbor into this century." Read more»

A Cape Cod nonprofit called Colorful Kidz has transformed 70 children's bedrooms since 2021, with volunteers refurbishing donated furniture to create personalized spaces for kids facing hard times, and is now raising funds to open a larger space.

The famous killer whale "Old Thom" has returned to Cape waters, spotted about 10 miles off Nantucket by Sureshot Charters this week, just as the season's first great white shark was also seen in Cape Cod Bay off Sandy Neck.

Brewster just found out it's been overcharged about $416,000 by the Nauset Regional Schools over the past six years due to a formula error that started about a decade ago.

A Harwich woman just claimed a $2 million prize from a scratch ticket bought at the local Mobil gas station, taking home a one-time payment of $1.3 million before taxes.

🛒 No Trader Joe's in Mashpee, For Now

The proposed Mashpee Trader Joe's just hit a major roadblock. After months of public hearings and debate, the project failed to get the supermajority approval it needed from the Planning Board on June 3.

Three members voted in favor and two voted to deny, but the project needed four yeses to move forward. Vice Chairwoman Karen Faulkner and member Michael Millbury cited concerns about traffic, parking, and public safety as their main reasons for the no vote.

Faulkner pointed to Trader Joe's reputation for high customer turnover and predicted chaos on Shellback Way and Route 28. Millbury said the applicant's traffic data underestimated the actual counts and called out the Cape Cod Commission for approving the project without consulting the town. The developer can still appeal the decision.. Read more»

Two 17-year-old Martha's Vineyard juniors are organizing the inaugural Swim Across America, Martha's Vineyard charity swim at Menemsha Beach on July 18, with a $200,000 fundraising goal to support cancer care at the island's hospital.

Nantucket's beloved "Broccoli Tree," a 170-plus-year-old American elm that's the island's largest tree, will be officially named a Liberty Tree this summer in honor of the United States' 250th anniversary.

Polly Hill Arboretum on Martha's Vineyard is testing new ways to fight the invasive southern pine beetle, including small floral-scented patches that trick the bugs into thinking a tree is already infested, offering a cheaper alternative to thinning or spraying.

After 12 years of planning, delays, and rising costs, Nantucket may finally be close to replacing its aging Harbormaster Building at 34 Washington Street, with construction now set to begin September 2026 and wrap up by May 2027.

The Cape Coddah is 100% free to read and independently owned (written by me).

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~Kari

🚨 Watch Out for Fake Town Emails

Heads up if you've got a permit application in Chatham. Scammers are impersonating local government officials and sending convincing fake invoices to people with active land use permits.

The emails look real, complete with the town seal, real official names, and details like property addresses and application numbers, all likely pulled from public legal notices. Victims are pressured to pay fabricated permit fees by wire transfer, Venmo, Zelle, or cryptocurrency.

The town has heard from 10 to 15 people who received these scam emails so far, with no confirmed payments yet. Legitimate town emails always come from a @chatham-ma.gov address. If you get something suspicious, look up the town department's phone number yourself and call to verify. Similar scams have hit Harwich, Falmouth, and other Massachusetts towns. Read more»

👋 Meet: Arthur
🐾 Siberian Husky
🎂 3 years old
♀︎ Male
Available to adopt at MSCPA-Cape Cod

FRIDAY - JUNE 5

Mud Kitchen @ CC Msm. Nat. History | 10:30 AM
Bike Tour @ Museums on the Green | 1:30 PM
Lego Club @ Centerville Library | 3:30 PM
First Fridays @ Orleans Main St. | 5 PM

SUNDAY - JUNE 7

Mike Pierce @ CC Winery | 12 PM
Andrew Geano @ Love Farms | 1 PM
Jim Devlin @ Shipwrecked | 2 PM
Sips & Sounds @ Pilgrim Congregational | 2:30
Double Trouble @ Bad Martha’s | 3 PM
Leah & Colleen @ Island Pickle | 3 PM
High Altitude @ Red Nun | 3 PM
Alan Broadbent Trio @ Highfield Hall | 4 PM
Rose Clancy @ Chatham Squire | 5 PM
Half a Mind @ Chapin’s Bayside | 5 PM
The Value Leaders @ The Woodshed | 5 PM
Ken Monteiro @ Hooked Bar & Grille | 6 PM
Jacob & Anya @ Torino’s | 6 PM
Aldous Collins Band @ Love Farms | 6 PM
Co-Pilot & Vanna @ Neptune’s CC | 7 PM
Frank Foot @ Margaritaville | 8 PM

_{Nothing in this section is sponsored. We'll let you know when something's sponsored.}

Friday

82 🌡️ 61 | 🌤️ | 💧 1% | 💨 SSW 7 mph

Saturday

77 🌡️ 64 | 🌤️ | 💧 10% | 💨 SSW 13 mph

Sunday

79 🌡️ 53 | 🌦️ | 💧 91% | 💨 WNW 9 mph

💧🌡️ Water temperature = 55ºF

190 Vineyard Road, Cotuit
Asking $649,000
10 🛏️
6.5 🛁
1,267 sqft
3.1 acre lot

_{Nothing in this section is sponsored. We'll always let you know when something's sponsored.}

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