50 Years Ago
- The Northampton School Committee will consider whether to hire a former board member as a negotiator paid at $40 an hour to bargain for a new contract with the teachers’ union. The negotiations subcommittee recommended the hiring of Edwin C. Warner, who retired last year from the school committee.
- Because of rowdyism and drinking outside a Northampton High School dance last Friday, no future dances — excepting the prom — will be held until security at the functions is studied and improved. Several student-age youths broke windows at the school when they were denied access by faculty chaperones because the youths appeared to have been drinking.
25 Years Ago
- Fourteen months after she began her job as the city’s senior planner, Carolyn Misch will resign next month to move with her husband to Denver. Despite Misch’s short tenure, Wayne Feiden, director of the Office of Planning and Development, said her departure “is a real loss for the city.”
- Round six came and went without a final answer on the building called a “beached Whale” and a “shed” by some, and “lively and sexy” by others. The Elm Street Historical District Committee met for the sixth time with Smith College campus center architects for a public hearing on the $15 million, 58,000 square foot building.
10 Years Ago
- A proposal to create a bylaw legalizing tiny houses will go before Hadley town Meeting May 5 with no recommendation from the Planning Board following a vote Tuesday. The proposed legislation would allow for the type of 190-square-foot “backyard cottage” Sarah Hastings has already built on the East Street property of Ron and Donna Adams.
- As the Northampton City Council prepares to take a second vote on the mayor’s proposed water and sewer rates overhaul, some in the business community are pushing back, claiming the new system unduly targets commercial users. In an effort to soften the blow for large customers this first year, Mayor David Narkewicz announced an amended proposal last week that would reduce volumetric rates across the board but keep the general structure the same.