■About 15 percent of the 800 employees at the Pro Brush Division of the Vistron Corp. in Florence will be laid off “indefinitely” beginning this Friday. Gordon Kiddoo, vice president of the Standard Oil Co. of Ohio and in charge of plastic products, said the layoff is due to a slump in sales of brush products during 1974.
■Construction of a salt storage shed behind the board of public works administration building on Locust Street was finished about two months ago. The BPW is currently investigating why no bids were invited for the project and why no contract was written for the work.
■Mayor Mary L. Ford presided over her last City Council meeting Thursday night, a session in which tributes and gifts nearly overtook the panel’s light agenda. Short speeches, gift-giving and the traditional sharing of cake and beverages ended Ford’s 12 years of service on the council — eight as mayor and four as a councilor-at-large.
■“Home Town,” Tracy Kidder’s chronicle of life in a small town, received high praise this week in a Time magazine 1999 best-of feature. Kidder’s latest book, the story of Northampton told largely through the voice of Northampton native and former police detective Thomas O’Connor, was named the number one non-fiction book of 1999 in the Time issue now on the newsstands.
■The Deerfield Select Board wants legislation requiring the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. or any other pipeline company to pay “royalties” on exported natural gas to landowners whose property has been taken by eminent domain for the pipeline — on grounds that such land-takings are allowed “for the greater good” of the community.
■University of Massachusetts President Robert L. Caret has resigned to return to the University System of Maryland, where he will become chancellor. Caret became the 26th president of UMass in January 2011. Before that, he was president of Towson University, one of the University System of Maryland’s 12 institutions.