50 Years Ago
- With only a minimum of support for the measure, the City Council last night voted down a resolution that would have put it on record in favor of non-partisan municipal elections. Councilors Frances McNulty, who introduced the resolution, and William Ames, the one Republican on the nine-member council, cast the only votes in favor of the measure.
- State police have ruled that three fires yesterday in a Leeds apartment house were set in an apparent act of vandalism. The fires were discovered at 7 a.m. at the Leeds Village Apartments at 239 Main St. One fire was extinguished when a water pipe melted, another burned itself out and a third was put out by firefighters.
25 Years Ago
- Over 100 parents — many with children in tow — spent most of Saturday at the Bridge Street School hard at work so their children can play. In the modern equivalent of a barn-raising, a volunteer crew in one day assembled a brightly colored play structure that will be the focal point of the Bridge Street School playground.
- Northampton school officials say they are being forced to use an unpredictable, controversial source of income — school choice funds — to pay for an essential: teacher pay raises. The move comes as teachers and school officials are negotiating for new contracts that could include a 3 percent pay raise.
10 Years Ago
- One of the last pieces of residential development on the former Northampton State Hospital grounds remains unfinished business. The Planning Board decided Thursday night to continue discussing Nov. 12 the proposed 85 units of zero-energy homes after neighbors raised concerns about trail access and traffic.
- Already home to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and the Yiddish Book Center, Hampshire College will soon have a new administrative and classroom building on campus that produces its own heat and electricity and does not depend on the town of Amherst’s water and sewer systems. When it opens in March, the R. W. Kern Center is expected to be a model for how sustainable building practices can be pursued, said Hampshire College President Jonathan Lash.