Paul Benson

Provincetown

Staff Reporter at The Provincetown Independent

Provincetown washashore. "A home at last." Reporter for the Provincetown Independent -- plus barman, tour guide, deckhand, and traveler. Happy to be here.

Featured in: Favicon

provincetownindependent.org Favicon

pridesource.com Favicon

mondaq.com Favicon

coastalnewstoday.com

Articles

New Plans for Housing at Seasonal Communities Meeting

3 days ago | provincetownindependent.org | Paul Benson

PROVINCETOWN — On an unseasonably hot Friday in May, local leaders from Cape Cod, the Islands, and the Berkshires gathered at town hall to discuss the state’s newest response to the worsening housing crisis: the “seasonal communities designation” created by last year’s Affordable Homes Act. The designation provides policy tools to towns that face a burgeoning market for vacation homes that has made it difficult for many year-round residents to secure housing.
Amid Turmoil, J-1 Students Are Welcomed Here

3 days ago | provincetownindependent.org | Paul Benson

PROVINCETOWN — The hundreds of international students who come to the Outer Cape through the U.S. State Dept.’s Summer Work Travel program will still be here this year, despite a recent disruption to the scheduling of interviews for the J-1 visas that allow them to travel.
ICE Targets Contractor Vans on Vineyard, Nantucket

3 days ago | provincetownindependent.org | Paul Benson

This article, by Paul Benson, includes excerpts from published reports in the Vineyard Gazette, the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, and the Falmouth Enterprise, reprinted with permission. A series of immigration operations in Massachusetts — including simultaneous mass arrests on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard on the morning of May 27 that removed 40 people from the islands — have set Cape Cod’s already anxious immigrant communities even more on edge.
Hepatitis Case at Restaurant Provokes Wide Alert

1 week ago | provincetownindependent.org | Paul Benson

PROVINCETOWN — On the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, the traditional kickoff of summer on Cape Cod, an alert went out from the Dept. of Public Health to news media across the state: a food-service worker at the Red Inn in Provincetown had contracted the hepatitis A virus, and people who dined at the restaurant between April 30 and May 15 could have been exposed.
Spring Brings New Businesses to Commercial St.

2 weeks ago | provincetownindependent.org | Paul Benson

PROVINCETOWN — Winter felt long here this year — the weather was unusually cold, and there were a notable number of closed storefronts and restaurants on Commercial Street. Napi’s Restaurant closed for good in September, and the Provincetown Brewing Co. closed its taproom on Bradford Street in January, removing two community gathering places that were especially important to Provincetown’s year-rounders.
Provincetown Chooses Greg Hennick as Police Chief

3 weeks ago | provincetownindependent.org | Paul Benson

PROVINCETOWN — After a five-month search for a new police chief that included several public meetings, a six-person search committee, nine candidates, and two finalists, Town Manager Alex Morse told the select board on May 12 that he had appointed the department’s lieutenant and acting chief Greg Hennick as police chief.
Bright Skies and Mild Language at Truro’s Big Tent

1 month ago | provincetownindependent.org | Paul Benson

TRURO — Staff don’t say much at town meetings here — even the town manager speaks only to answer questions. Instead, Moderator Paul Wisotzky cheerfully asks if anyone wants to introduce the next article, and the people — select board members, committee members, and the public at large — take it from there. Meetings can last for six hours and often spill onto a second day.
Provincetown Unveils Its Coastal Resilience Plan

1 month ago | provincetownindependent.org | Paul Benson

PROVINCETOWN — A near-final draft of the coastal resiliency plan that the town has been working on since last spring was unveiled at the select board meeting on April 28, and it contains numerous recommendations for protecting the town from rising seawater and increasingly powerful storms resulting from climate change. Several neighborhoods along Commercial Street were flooded by surges of seawater during winter storms in 2018 and 2022, and a powerful storm hit the town again in January 2024.
Exploring the Numbers for a Residential Tax Exemption in Eastham

1 month ago | provincetownindependent.org | Parker Mumford |Paul Benson

EASTHAM — Ever since the select board voted in January to begin planning for a residential tax exemption (RTE) in the upcoming fiscal year, opposition to the policy from part-time residents who would not be able to take the exemption has been repeatedly expressed in public comments at select board meetings.
After ‘Nerve-Wracking’ Pause, Feds Resume Processing H-2B Visas

1 month ago | provincetownindependent.org | Paul Benson

PROVINCETOWN — The seasonal economy of the Outer Cape relies heavily on a workforce that many tourists seldom see: the chefs, dishwashers, and housekeepers who keep hotels looking pristine and restaurants running smoothly. Many who do these jobs are Jamaicans who come to the Outer Cape through a seasonal worker program that dates to 1952: the H-2 non-immigrant visa, which was divided into the H-2A for agricultural workers and the H-2B for nonagricultural workers in 1986.