50 Years Ago
Salvatore A. Polito, a Northampton lawyer for 25 years, has chosen to give up his “modest” law practice in order to continue as clerk of Hampshire County Superior Court, a job he has held for 11 years. Under a 1973 ruling, Superior Court clerks are prohibited from practicing law after the first of the year to prevent potential abuse of office.
Eleanor Rothman has been appointed assistant director of the Ada Comstock Scholars Program, a new program at Smith College. Initiated on a trial basis and without a formal title in 1968, the program is devoted to expanding the educational opportunities for women who do not fall into the traditional undergraduate student mold.
25 Years Ago
Protesters arrested during a downtown demonstration last month are soliciting the public’s help to encourage the district attorney to drop the criminal charges against them. The protesters, members of a group called the Western Massachusetts Resistance Coalition, have been collecting signatures on petitions and postcards that they plan to send to Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel.
The Cooley Dickinson Hospital will open a 25-bed “transitional support” home in Holyoke this fall, filling what hospital officials say has been a major gap in services for recovering alcoholics and addicts. A $4.8 million public health grant over four years is paying for the program, which will provide short-term housing.
10 Years Ago
A 15,000-gallon chemical storage tank located in a dense residential neighborhood along the Mill River in Florence has gone 20 years without a city license because of “paperwork oversight,” but state and city officials say the tank is in safe working order. The aboveground tank, which was installed in 1965, has been used to store formaldehyde by plastics manufacturing Chemiplastica since it moved to the plant at 238 Nonotuck St. in 2008.
A pair of peacocks who flew the coop wandered about two miles from their home at a Chesterfield Road bed and breakfast and farm, and evaded capture by both city and Environmental Police Monday night. Their owners came forward Tuesday morning, police said, but the birds are still at large.