■Urging newcomers to become involved in what she called the town’s “active and engrossing political life and governmental structure,” Mrs. Lucy Wilson Benson of Amherst, U.S. League of Women Voters president, addressed the Amherst Chamber of Commerce last night. The occasion was the 12th annual “Welcome to Amherst” Chamber dinner.
■Harry S. Chapman Jr. was officially declared the winner of the Democratic nomination for City Councilor from Ward 6 after a recount last night. Chapman’s seven-vote margin over incumbent Joseph H. Bonneau was cut to a six-vote edge during the tally check.
■In 1968, Smith College administrators moved to give a parcel of prized Vernon Street land to the city. But somehow, the deed was misplaced, and the transaction never completed. Nearly 30 years later, the deal is on again. Now, the city wants to build affordable family housing on the 0.43-acre lot, near the old Vernon Street School.
■Members of the Pulaski Day Commemoration Committee said in a letter they’ll take their celebration to Easthampton if they are forced to pay a user fee for Northampton’s Pulaski Park. Though Easthampton also has a Pulaski Park in its downtown area, no fee is charged for its use by community groups.
■An Easthampton couple plans to open a new movie theater on Cottage Street, on a spot that once housed a church. Kristen Davis and her husband, Thomas Doherty, are bringing their vision of an eclectic movie theater to life in the space that used to house the Iglesia de Dios church at 32 Cottage Street. The theater will be called Popcorn Noir.
■The Leverett Peace Pagoda is celebrating the completion of a concrete temple Sunday in a ceremony that marks the culmination of the painstakingly long process to replace the first temple that was destroyed by fire in 1987. The original wood and glass structure next to the Peace Pagoda shrine burned down just six weeks after it opened.