Easthampton recount confirms Proposition 2½ override victory

Hadley town administrator: Capital planning needs more consistency, funding to maintain services

HADLEY — Growing the tax base and increasing the water and sewer rates may be necessary to ensure Hadley’s capital plan can adequately maintain municipal services, buildings and assets, according to Town Administrator Nate Malloy. At a Bi Board meeting of the Select Board and Finance Committee last Wednesday, Malloy said the capital plan is […]

Guest columnist Sarena Neyman: How riding the subway as a kid changed how I see the world

It was 1974. The Bronx was burning. Abandoned cars littered the streets, and New York City teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. I’m still surprised my overprotective Holocaust-survivor parents let their preteen daughter ride the subway to school every day, but somehow they did. For five years — from eighth grade through high school — […]

Way Finders opens applications for 60-unit affordable housing in South Hadley

SOUTH HADLEY — The longtime regional affordable housing organization Way Finders is accepting applications for a new 60-unit development in South Hadley at the site of a former Big Y grocery store not far from the routes 33 and 116 intersection. The development on Newton Street, called The Clover, is a four-story building consisting of […]

Guest columnist Greg Tuleja: Pinocchios

In a children’s novel written by Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio is a wooden puppet carved by the carpenter Geppetto, who controls the puppet’s physical actions with strings. In Collodi’s story, Pinocchio acquires some human characteristics, including dishonesty, and whenever he lies, his nose grows longer. I was reminded of Pinocchio, the puppet who lies, during the recent renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Donald Trump has often said that of paramount importance in his administration is “loyalty” to him, that is, unquestioning agreement with whatever he says or does. He has surrounded himself with “puppets,” whose acts, according to a dictionary […]

Chance Encounters with Bob Flaherty: Three generations and answers to long-held riddles

HADLEY — It took a scorching hot day on the bike path to unravel a mystery that’s been with you for decades. On a family trip to the Dominican Republic the same week the Red Sox signed the island’s own Pedro Martinez, out of nowhere something clicked, a thing so unexpected you surprised yourself, let […]