■Complaints of loud noise, persons loitering in the road, and groups sleeping overnight on lawns at Hampshire Heights were reported last night at a meeting of the Citizens Advisory Committee. The report has triggered new concerns over the acceptance requirements of tenants in the low-income housing project.
■The Second Annual Plank Riding Contest will be held tomorrow morning at the Northampton High School parking lot. All city playground children will accompany their supervisors to the high school on their bicycles.
■The Rev. J. Donald Lapointe, who has served at Sacred Heart Church for 12 years, and overseen St. John Cantius Church for a year and a half, is leaving for a post in Chicopee Falls. His new post will be just one mile away from where he grew up.
■In a made-for-media event, more than 20 Hampton Gardens residents crowded into a City Hall office yesterday chanting “no more secrets.” Members of the group asked about the latest city plan concerning Hampton Gardens, the 207-unit housing complex that could soon lose a portion of its subsidized apartments.
■An assistant police chief in Hartford, Conn., has been named to the $140,000-a-year position of chief of the University of Massachusetts Police Department. John K. Horvath was chosen from a group of 88 applicants for the job of UMass police chief and director of public safety.
■After almost two years under city review, a controversial affordable housing project proposed for 69 Parsons St. in Easthampton appeared Tuesday to be on the verge of gaining final approval. The Zoning Board of Appeals reviewed a draft of a decision to approve the Parsons Village project with 36 conditions, but did not vote on it.