A Look Back, March 18

200 years around the table: St. John’s to celebrate its Northampton legacy this weekend

NORTHAMPTON — The St. John’s Episcopal Church orients itself inward rather than upward. The wooden pews and cream arches inside the church on Elm Street turn inward toward the dark wood table draped with forest green and white tableclothes. The large circle around “God’s table,” as the Rev. Anna Woofenden calls it, places the altar […]

AG report details decades of abuse at Fall River, Springfield, Worcester dioceses

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell released a report detailing decades of sexual abuse involving more than 270 Catholic clerics and 944 children within the Fall River, Springfield and Worcester dioceses, while simultaneously calling for legislative reforms to aid survivors.

Chesterfield residents approve bylaw for battery energy storage systems

CHESTERFIELD — Residents at a special Town Meeting Wednesday night unanimously approved a bylaw governing battery energy storage systems, or BESS. The attorney general will need to sign off before the rules take effect. According to Town Clerk Sandy Wickland, 46 people attended the meeting. Every person in the room, representing approximately 5% of the […]

Amherst Fire Department receives $888K grant to boost staffing levels

AMHERST — A three-year plan to increase staffing for the Amherst Fire Department, bringing the department to as many as 55 full-time members by fiscal 2029, is being supported with an $888,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As part of $14.7 million in grant funding for fire departments and other first responder organizations […]

Western Mass. residents urge Healey to intervene in Eversource plan

SHUTESBURY — Residents who have already taken their concerns to Eversource at community forums are now pressing Gov. Maura Healey to intervene before the utility begins removing trees from 278 acres in 11 communities, most of them in Franklin and Hampshire counties. A letter to Healey from Western Mass Towns for a Responsible Grid, so […]