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On May 21, Hadley voters will be asked to approve funding for a new ladder truck for the Fire Department, to replace the 24-year-old truck that is no longer able to adequately meet the town’s firefighting needs. The department’s aging ladder truck...

I would like to publicly express my gratitude to Professor Henia Lewin, as we marked Yom HaShoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day. Last April 11th, during Genocide Awareness Month, Northampton High School junior Maayan Seltzer organized a schoolwide event...

Instead of adding more bike paths that will need to be maintained, how about maintaining the roads for the existing designated routes? The South Street route is more treacherous than ever. Giant potholes and debris make riding (and driving ) more like...

When former City Council president Bill Dwight wrote a column recently to explain the present school funding situation Northampton, I was grateful that someone had put in the time to find and present the facts, the numbers and the history. It’s not a...

We’re not only students, we’re the future of Northampton. As an 8th grade student at JFK Middle School, I can confidently say a large public school budget is essential for maintaining a thriving educational environment. These teachers not only...

I have a deep appreciation and respect for people engaging in the democratic process, having had the honor of serving constituents in western Massachusetts as a legislative staffer. In my role of connecting people with their government, I witnessed...

By JONATHAN WRIGHT

 We live in a hot time with many pressures on resources at every level. That said, the current budget circumstance in Northampton was completely visible to the naked eye last year and carried warnings for the fiscal 2025 budget.This is due to a...

By ANDY MORRIS-FRIEDMAN

 The latest medical hoax, the worst hoax perpetrated on the American people in the history of our once-great country, dwarfing all other hoaxes except the 2020 election, is the bird flu.First it was COVID, now bird flu. In the pecking order of...

We are dismayed that UMass Chancellor Javier Reyes thought his job included calling in police to arrest peacefully protesting students, and community members who were there quietly to observe and support the protest. It seems he doesn’t understand...

It's a shame that the word appreciation is used for this thing we call “Teacher Appreciation Week” because it's such a horrible word. Don’t get me wrong, appreciation is great. I appreciate a nice day, kind weather, and a movie that doesn’t...

As a parent of a Northampton elementary student, I respect letter writer John Frey’s emphasis on fiscal prudence [“School Committee must practice prudent fiscal management,” Gazette, May 10]. However, focusing solely on our city’s AAA bond rating...

I’m feeling much gratitude today for the Northampton Survival Center and our community for a successful Post Office Food Drive. The event felt like a big party with great music, delicious snack donations from local restaurants, well organized guidance...

By JOHN SHEIRER

During the afternoon of May 10, 1994, I stepped outside into reduced light to see silvery, crescent-shaped shadows shimmering dreamily beneath a mid-sized maple tree. Then on August 21, 2017, I joined my wife Betsy near the Smith College greenhouse...

By MIKE MAGEE

 Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Never again should the residents of the Quabbin region be fooled into believing that they will see any benefits from the Quabbin Reservoir.In the 1930s, the state took the entire towns of...

By GWEN AGNA

I write, on my behalf and only my behalf, to clarify my reason for voting for the level services budget for the Northampton Public Schools.I did not vote for it because I think there are millions of dollars being socked away irresponsibly by our...

I visited Northampton on the first weekend of May and picked up a copy of the Gazette and a front-page article about the pains of student debt caught my attention. All too often I read similar articles about today’s snowflake generation pleading for...

By DAVID NARKEWICZ

Since leaving office I have avoided the public spotlight, but recent controversy regarding Northampton’s budget and the city’s Fiscal Stability Plan compel me to offer some historical perspective.When I was sworn in as mayor in 2012, our finances...

By BILL NEWMAN

This column is about my daughter Jo, her daughters Kobin and Ramona, a horse named Lady and the U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón. And it also isn’t.Kobin is five, almost six. Ramona is three, close to four. Jo, the girls and their dad, Jo’s husband Dean,...

In Olin Rose-Bardawil’s column “Corporate capture a grave threat to citizens” [Gazette, April 11], he argues that corporate involvement in agencies is determining federal regulations, which results in increased profits for industries, leaving people...

What happened? Clearly something went wrong the last couple of years in budget planning for Northampton schools. We don’t need to blame individuals, but we do need to understand the faulty process that led to this crisis to avoid this happening again....