■The proposed $400,000 recreation complex off Burts Pit Road received an unexpected setback last night when the Northampton Capital Improvements Committee voted to submit an unfavorable recommendation to the City Council. The proposal had enjoyed relatively clear sailing when discussed at the last two council meetings.
■Northampton residents who have decorated the outside of their homes for Christmas are eligible to win a $25 savings bond in a contest sponsored by the Northampton Jaycees. Thomas Heafey of the Jaycees explained that the annual contest awards area residents the prize as a means of showing recognition for their decorating efforts.
■Something new is planned on Bridge Street to help bring out the old. Historic Northampton has launched a campaign to raise $20,000 to renovate the Damon Education Center for a museum with extensive exhibits.
■A city panel says people whose cars were towed during a November blizzard must pay up. A blanket denial of appeals has been issued by the City Council Claims Committee. The committee this month considered an appeal made by a car owner whose vehicles were towed during the season’s first snowstorm last month.
■At a vigil outside Jackson Street School late Sunday afternoon in memory of those killed in a shooting rampage two days earlier at a school in Connecticut, there were candles, songs and poetry, But mostly, there was silence.
■Cooley Dickinson is one of 92 hospitals nationwide and eight in Massachusetts named to The Leapfrog Group’s annual list of Top Hospitals. Cooley Dickinson was selected as a Top Hospital out of nearly 1,200 hospitals participating in The Leapfrog Group’s annual survey.