■Fifteen potential jurors were pulled off the streets of Greenfield this morning to replenish the jury pool for the Samuel H. Lovejoy trial in Franklin County Superior Court. Judge Kent Smith explained that when the official jury list is exhausted, jurors must be chosen from the “highways and byways” of the county.
■Vandalism at Northampton’s sanitary landfill area off Glendale Road has been so severe over the past year that special steel doors, wire mesh windows and new locks have had to be installed. Vandals have broken into the site ten times in the past year.
■Federal and state aid will be sought to help pay for the estimated $2 million in damage caused in the city by the remnants of Hurricane Floyd. Mayor Mary L. Ford said Friday that Thursday’s storm, which swelled the Mill River and small streams, will rank as the decade’s worst local public safety emergency.
■Rev. James Sipitkowski, better known to his parishioners as Father Jim, has been appointed the new pastor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Easthampton. Father Jim replaces the Rev. Ronald Sadlowski, who after 13 years in Easthampton was assigned by the diocese to serve the Catholic community at Sacred Heart in Feeding Hills.
■Northampton is considering joining a growing list of communities nationwide to ban plastic bags in supermarkets and other retail stores, and Styrofoam disposable food and beverage containers used in restaurants. A few Northampton businesses have already ditched plastic bags, including Serio’s Market and River Valley Market.
■In this digital age, items such as brochures, maps and bus schedules have become, well, quaint. For that reason, the iconic Amherst Chamber of Commerce information booth — situated near the Town Common for 50 years — is going the way of the telephone booth. The building will get a new use along a different road as a farm stand.