■The fifth annual Massachusetts Snowmobile Championship Races were held at the Three County Fairgrounds yesterday. Despite the pouring rain, a crowd of close to 4,000 fans turned out to watch the event, which was organized by the Hampshire Regional YMCA Snowmobile Race committee as a benefit for the Y.
■Five Northampton High School seniors have advanced to finalist status in the 1972 National Merit Program, Principal John Feeney announced today. The finalists are: Rebecca Fitzgerald, William J. Gutowski, Jeffrey S. Olmsted, Marc Tallent, and Sarah P. Unsworth.
■After all the talk at two public hearings, a couple of petitions and a neighborhood poll, the deed is done. Spring Street will have a sidewalk. Despite passionate pleas by some people to save what was described as the neighborhood’s rural character, and doubts expressed over how much safety a sidewalk would actually provide, board members saw it differently and voted to approve the project.
■For the second School Committee meeting in a row, 75 Northampton teachers packed a high school classroom last night to demonstrate their impatience to settle a contract. This time, they had strewn meeting tables with scores of red paper valentines in advance. Each heart contained a handwritten message from a teacher, describing work he or she does without compensation.
■Plans to fix one of the city’s busiest and most dangerous intersections at Pleasant and Conz streets with a new roundabout were announced this week. Not only is the intersection one of the most heavily used in the city, it is also among the most dangerous. Nearly 140 accidents have taken place there over the last decade.
■An Easthampton resident and eight-year staff member at the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission will be Easthampton’s next city planner. Mayor Michael Tautznik chose Jessica J. Allan, 38, to fill the post longtime planner Stuart Beckley vacated Feb. 2.