■The Whately Congregational Church was the scene Sunday of a quiet gathering celebrating the church’s 200th anniversary. Townspeople and guests from surrounding communities filed into the old New England structure. Warm sunshine and clear weather added to the festive atmosphere of the day.
■The last 40 of the city’s 730 employees have petitioned to join the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 1776. City Hall employees numbering between 35 and 40 are the only group of city employees without a collective bargaining agent.
■Continental Cablevision, Inc., the nation’s third-largest cable company, has rolled out Highway1, a service that uses cable modems and cable television lines to transfer computer data more than 100 times faster than telephone modems using standard phone lines.
■A long-forgotten dump for the former Northampton State Hospital is being cleaned up, the first of two environmental problems there that the state aims to remedy. Approximately 900 cubic yards of material will be excavated and trucked from one site to the city’s Glendale Road landfill for disposal.
■Six years after approving the Community Preservation Act, voters here will decide Nov. 8 whether they want to repeal the measure that assesses a surcharge on property taxes to fund community improvement projects. On Monday, a group of citizens led by Ward 7 City Councilor Eugene A. Tacy secured more than 953 signatures, which amounts to at least the 5% of the registered voters needed to get the question on the ballot.
■Hatfield resident Tim Fisk was named last week as executive director of the advocacy group Alliance to Develop Power. Interim director since May, Fisk replaces Caroline Murray, who held the post for 18 years.