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By MAYOR GINA-LOUISE SCIARRA

By KAREN KAUSCHEN

Funding our schools isn’t just about supporting our children today — it’s about lowering Northampton’s long-term costs associated with crime, social services, and lost tax revenue. The narrative that restoring $2 million to the school budget will take $10 million away from future capital improvements over five years overlooks a crucial truth: every dollar invested in education generates significant returns.

Brainstorm! What if we employed Harry and Meghan as a U.S. cut-rate version of the royals! For some annual stipend they could do the kind of things royals do in Britain! Visit new factories and sewage treatment plants, cut the ribbon for new municipal parking garages. Elevate the tone a bit and give them something to do.

What a refreshing experience it is to read the marvelous columns by Olin Rose-Bardawil. I salute you, Olin for your insights, offerings and critical thinking. How refreshing!

This letter is in response to Olin Rose-Bardawil’s column “The case for debate in our polarized times,” [Gazette, Jan. 10].

By DOUGLAS J. AMY

By JOHN VARNER

In their Jan. 4 columns, both writers Joe Silverman [“Climate in the court of public opinion”] and Sarena Neyman [“Killing sparked long-overdue dialogue about greed. We need to keep talking”] seem to think that if they had better messaging campaigns, their policy proposals would be widely accepted. If only others had the proper understanding, we could finally make progress on fixing these problems. But isn’t it possible that many do understand the authors’ conclusory views on taxes, wealth, and climate change and simply disagree with them?

Well, we’re going to have an inauguration, sort of. We’ll see how this works out, but optimism is not my long suit. Our challenges include:

By DONALD JORALEMON

This most certainly is an indictment of a so-called “economic system” that supposedly melds democracy with capitalism and produced an idiot class news industry, billionaire toxicity and a world that is literally on fire.

As the Northampton City Council considers a proposed ban on fossil fuels in new buildings, I urge them to consider the price tag on the alternative.

By EDWARD DOWD

I am writing to alert the citizens of South Hadley to a very important community forum on Jan. 16 at 6 p.m. in the Community Room of the South Hadley Main Public Library.

Many thanks to Jim Bridgman for his very informative blurb in “A Look Back” in the Gazette’s Jan. 4 edition. According to his column, the Gazette reported 38 deaths in the city of Northampton for 1824, a rate of mortality of 1 out of 87, suggesting that the population of the city at that time was 3,306. Bridgman did not list the causes of those deaths, but he did describe the breakdown of deaths by age group. One-quarter of the 38 deaths that year were children under the age of 10 (26%), while one-third of all deaths (34%) were children and teens below the age of 20.

Thank you for publishing Erica Avery’s Dec. 26 letter to the editor, ”Column on gender care for children opens discussion.”

Among the outrages of the Biden presidency, which include using presidential authority to pardon a family member and providing Israel with unlimited weapons to commit genocide, Biden broke campaign promises to reverse Donald Trump’s aggressive policies against Cuba, contributing to an economic crisis that has led to the emigration of over 10% of the population.

By BILL NEWMAN

Words matter. Some I wish I didn’t need to know.

By BARBARA A. ROUILLARD

By OLIN ROSE-BARDAWIL

In my column last month, I chose to discuss a subject, Trump’s appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary, that I knew would be controversial.

Like the writer of the Jan. 2 opinion column “Negotiate Ukraine peace now, not risk nuclear war with Russia,” and the two letter writers on Jan. 7, I too am alarmed at the growing possibility that we could get into a war with Russia if the U.S. and NATO decide to send in troops to bail out Ukraine’s exhausted and manpower-short army which keeps losing more and more territory; and if we keep letting Ukraine fire our long-range missiles into Russia, which is crossing a big red line for them. Such a “conventional” war could easily turn into full-scale nuclear war.