50 Years Ago
Elementary school students in Northampton will eat primarily cold lunches next year because of action taken Thursday by the school committee. The committee voted 5 to 2 to replace the city’s current hot meals in the elementary schools with a cold lunch program featuring sandwiches and hot soup or juice.
Hampshire County Planner Richard Gaffney said today that the county hopes to be able to construct a new county jail on the portion of the Northampton State Hospital grounds which a state Department of Mental Health land use study committee recommended Wednesday should be given to the county. The exact site for the new jail has not yet been determined.
25 Years Ago
As residents’ concerns mount about a proposed subdivision in a Leeds neighborhood, the developer says he is beginning to doubt any plan to develop the property will satisfy them. “My perception is they don’t want anything there. They just want to continue to use it as private property,” said John J. Hanley of New York City, chair of the Beaver Brook Nominee Trust, which owns the land.
A $10,000 donation from Wal-Mart will pay for improvements at the intersection of Hatfield Street and Cooke Avenue, where a traffic accident claimed the life of a city woman in January. City councilors voted unanimously to accept the donation Thursday night. The city’s Office of Planning and Development will oversee the fund.
10 Years Ago
Despite an eleventh-hour session with a federal mediator Tuesday evening, about a third of Clinical & Support Options’ unionized workers began a three-day strike Wednesday morning at agency locations across western Massachusetts after the last-ditch negotiating efforts failed to yield a compromise between union members and agency management.
The proposed Five College Consortium library annex project off North Maple Street in Hadley is facing opposition in a Planning Board hearing that began earlier this month and will continue in August. Planning Board Clerk William E. Dwyer said if the building grows to the full size sought by Five College Consortium officials, the annex would be larger than either Home Depot or Lowe’s, which are among the largest buildings in Hadley.