With barely two weeks to spare, the Select Board has approved a warrant and confirmed date and time for this fall’s upcoming Special Town Meeting. 

Harvard citizens seeking smaller, easier-to-maintain homes probably don’t need to be told that downsizing here is difficult.

Last Tuesday, Detective Daniele Fortunato of the Harvard Police Department held a talk, “Scam Alert,” through the Council on Aging (COA), discussing different tips to protect one’s identity and avoid being scammed.

At Bare Hill Pond, the high cell count of cyanobacteria, a type of blue-green algae that can produce toxins, prompted the Board of Health to leave the current no-contact advisory in effect.

The Planning and Select boards both voted this week to include a bylaw on the Oct. 3 Special Town Meeting warrant that would encourage the development of senior housing in Harvard. 

The state reported two new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Harvard this week.

When hunting season opens next month, 30 bow hunters will have permits to hunt deer in a limited number of Harvard conservation areas.

With a School Committee vote this week, students in kindergarten through fourth grade will soon have an option to receive school-issued iPads.

The Bromfield School once again secured a top spot in Boston magazine’s 2020 list of top public high schools in the Interstate 495 region, earning a sixth-place ranking this year.

Housing designated for older residents is once again on the town’s radar as the Planning Board prepares to offer voters two new Senior Housing Development protective bylaws. 

The town received some good news Sept. 3 when test results on algae-plagued Bare Hill Pond found no toxins present in water samples.

The Planning Board has proposed two new bylaws designed to increase housing for Harvard residents aged 55 and older. 

The Select Board has resolved to include a traffic circle in the Ayer Road repaving project.

The War Monument Restoration Committee is moving ahead with plans to restore and update the World War II, Korean, and Vietnam War memorial on the  Common this fall. 

Almost half of Harvard’s registered voters took part in Tuesday’s state primary, but the overwhelming majority did so with early or absentee ballots. Town Clerk Marlene Kenney said 521 people came to the polls in person, but just over 1,600 mailed in their ballots, deposited them in the box at Town Hall, or voted early at Town Hall.

Earlier this summer, magnet fishers got more than they bargained for in a section of the Nashua River just south of Route 2A in Devens. Their catch? Unexploded ordnance, bringing in the Devens Fire Department and the Massachusetts State Police Bomb Squad to secure the area and dispose of it.

On Aug. 12, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen Theoharides announced that the entire state of Massachusetts is in a level 2, or significant, drought. Town officials, however, have not restricted use in Harvard’s water district or issued advisories for private well owners. 

As Harvard schools prepare to reopen next week, last-minute decisions by families who want their elementary school children to take classes remotely have led to a need for more teachers.

Harvard residents are advised to have no contact with the water in Bare Hill Pond because of the possibility that the algal bloom there may be producing harmful toxins. The advisory was issued Aug. 28 by the Board of Health and the Nashoba Associated Boards of Health.