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By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — When Town Manager Steve Williams goes on the road to advertise Belchertown as a viable, business-friendly community, business owners admit to him that they never considered the town as a potential home for their company.

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Races are heating up for the May 19 town election, where two seats on the Select Board and one seat on the School Committee are up for grabs.

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — After a month of parent protest and debate among town leaders, the Select Board narrowly approved putting a Proposition 2½ general override question on the ballot to fund level-services budgets for both the schools and the town.

By EMILEE KLEIN

LUDLOW — A new regional energy manager will guide decarbonization and sustainable energy efforts for 15 communities in Hampshire and Hampden counties as part of a collaboration to bring down energy costs.

By Dr. DAVID GOTTSEGEN

I’ve been a physician for nearly 40 years. We are trained to evaluate information about human health based on a foundation of knowledge learned in 11-12 years of pre-med, med school and residency training, evidence-based research, and experience listening to and treating thousands of patients.

The Gazette article “Racism still being handed down in Northampton deeds” [Feb. 28] refers to work done by me and the Hampshire Registry of Deeds to find restrictive covenants in our deeds. Restrictive covenants, here, is language that prohibits certain discriminatory action as a condition of transferring the deed to another party. The language is unenforceable per Supreme Court decision Shelly v. Kraemer in 1948 and expressly prohibited by the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

By MICHAEL CAROLAN

By ELLY VAUGHAN

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Tensions ran high during Monday night’s Select Board meeting as Belchertown families and school district staff — who spilled out the back and sides of the room holding signs to protest the proposed $2.1 million cut to the district’s level-services budget — pleaded with board members to consider a Proposition 2½ budget override for fiscal year 2026.

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — For 15 minutes Wednesday morning, Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler turned the Belchertown High School Auditorium into his history classroom, teaching the Belchertown student body about a series of individuals who shattered the glass ceilings for Black people in their respective industries.

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Weeks after learning the Belchertown school budget is $2.1 million short of funding level services, the School Committee is contemplating staff layoffs and reductions, cuts of extracurricular activities — including sports and performing arts — and closing Cold Spring School.

On Feb. 28, concerned Americans will protest the takeover of our country by refusing to spend money. The so-called “restoration of shared values” currently amounts to insulting allies; stripping women, trans people and children of medical care and basic rights; threatening critics; moving to abolish the free press; administering loyalty tests; firing workers without cause; deporting immigrants; dismantling DEI; and handing over governmental functions and records to an unelected, foreign-born neo-Nazi.

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Belchertown is the most recent community to endorse the completion of the 104-mile Mass Central Rail Trail that runs through 26 communities across the state.

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Window World of Western Massachusetts has a long history of providing quality windows and doors, but the business only provides one piece in the whole picture of home improvement — until now.

‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!” Thus spaketh the Trojan priest, Laocoön, upon observing an enormous wooden horse left at the gates of Troy as a peace offering by the city’s mortal enemies. Disregarding the soothsayer’s wariness and in a triumph of optimism over experience, the Trojan leaders ordered the gates opened and had the exotic gift wheeled into the city.

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Coming off a year of regional and national honors in baton twirling, the Belchertown Twirlers started their competition season strong when two members earned first and second place in the Pre-teen Miss Majorette of Massachusetts Pageant.

By DR. DAVID GOTTSEGEN

The week of Jan. 20, 2025, made history in a way few Americans realize. For the first time in 128 years, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, originally called Public Health Reports, was not published due to a gag order placed on all federal agencies by the new president.

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Four years after an online petition garnered more than 5,200 signatures in favor of Massachusetts returning 430 acres of state-owned land in Belchertown known as the Lampson Brook Farm to the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band, a new House bill proposes giving the tribe authorization to steward a majority of the farm and forestland.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Revised regulations on the sale of tobacco products in Amherst drafted by the Board of Health, including restricting oral nicotine pouches to adults-only tobacco stores, is winning both praise and criticism from the public, with advocates for curtailing access to tobacco calling for the town to bolster the rules by adopting a nicotine-free generation measure.

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — The School Committee is pushing back against a potential $2.1 million cut to its proposed $36 million level-services school budget that would result in the loss of more than 20 positions, a blow to the schools after the committee’s proposed budgets have been cut $4 million in the past five years.

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — A new project called Branding Belchertown aims to overhaul the visual identity of the commuter community in hopes of distinguishing Belchertown as a destination for tourism and business.