Belchertown moving ahead with school closure

No more lone responders: Amherst adds four firefighters, plans to increase minimum staffing levels year-round

AMHERST — An Amherst firefighter driving an engine to a fire or other emergency ensures a prompt response, but once on scene, a single responder has to wait until other members of the career, on-call or student force arrive. “You can’t effectively do anything at a fire with a single person,” said Sarah Forsaith, president of the Amherst Firefighters Local 1764. But the occasional challenge of having a solitary firefighter on board an engine should soon go away. The town is adding four firefighters and eventually increasing the minimum staffing to 10 full-time firefighter-paramedics year-round, upping this from the current seven […]

Rejected Hadley battery project returns amid lawsuit, resident concerns

HADLEY — A stand-alone battery storage project on Breckenridge Road that planners rejected 18 months ago — and that is now the subject of a pending lawsuit — is back before the Planning Board, where residents this week raised concerns about dangers to people and wildlife, as well as expected noise. Those who live near […]

A legacy of service: Hadley fire chief calls it a career

HADLEY — On the busiest days, around 100,000 vehicles pass through or stop in Hadley, significantly increasing the size of the town that has about 5,300 year-round residents. Yet until 2005, when Michael Spanknebel became Hadley’s first full-time firefighter, the Hadley Fire Department depended exclusively on on-call firefighting staff, those who could respond to emergencies from their workplaces or homes. In the 21 years since, and his 13 years as fire chief, the department has become more professional. By the end of this summer, it will return to having at least two full-time firefighters on each shift, with one shift having […]

Shalini Bahl: When good intentions lead to harm

Most of us believe that if our intentions are good, our decisions will be too. I used to think so as well. But during my years on the Amherst Town Council, I learned that good intentions can still lead to harmful outcomes when they’re shaped by incomplete information, hidden biases, and the limits of our own perspective. I expected disagreement on the council. What surprised me was something deeper: caring, thoughtful people often reached very different conclusions because each of us was seeing only part of the picture. We naturally give more weight to the people we hear from, the experiences […]

First-of-its-kind heat pump coming to UMass campus

UMass Amherst will install a 5-megawatt industrial heat pump using a $7.35 million state grant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.