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By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — After years of rubber-stamping capital projects as funds become available, leaving critical infrastructure work to pile up and deteriorating buildings to wait for repairs, Belchertown this week adopted the town’s first capital planning...

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Brewed with tenacity, poured with purpose.The two slogans of Arcpoint Brewing Company, Belchertown’s first brewery located at 30 Front St., stand out in bright red letters against the blue grey walls painted the same color as the skins...

“Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred.” So wrote Alfred Lord Tennyson in commemorating the heroic yet suicidal mission undertaken by the British Light Brigade in the 1854 Battle of Balaclava. Fast forward to the Pioneer Valley’s contemporary...

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — The only structure that appeared still intact from the first superintendent’s home at the Belchertown State School was a century-old stone wall outlining a small grassy plot at 47 State St.At least that’s what residents believed until...

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Despite stormwater rates dropping over the past couple years, residents won’t see similar savings on their stormwater bills for the upcoming year. The Select Board approved a stormwater rate of $6.62 for fiscal year 2025, up 78 cents...

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

Authorities have identified two victims in vehicle-related crashes that occurred at the end of July as Bert Hickey, 51, of Belchertown, and Heru Dihaan, 19, a Connecticut resident who had a sister living in Northampton.Hickey, who died on July 21 in a...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — A recent visit to Brookfield Farm gave Bronx, N.Y., teens Emily Robinson and Royale Cash Panchoo an opportunity to see baby pigs, pick blueberries and make flower bouquets, one of their several excursions around town and the region while...

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Before police officers began their patrols last Friday, each officer clipped on one of the 23 fully charged body cameras sitting on a docking station, officially launching the department’s body-worn camera program that aims to improve...

BELCHERTOWN — Authorities are investigating a single-car crash that took the life of a 51-year-old Belchertown resident on Sunday night, the third fatal motor vehicle crash in Hampshire County in a 72-hour period.Police responded to Sunday’s crash at...

By EMILEE KLEIN

Sara Fortin and her boyfriend Robert Mehr explore their new home of western Massachusetts by hopping in their car and driving from neighborhood to neighborhood, searching for yard sales, tag sales, estate stales, any type of local market with...

By ABNER ROJAS

SPRINGFIELD — As Dakin Humane Society reopens its Kitten Intensive Care Unit at 171 Union St. this month, Pioneer Valley residents are ready to continue their mission of nursing critically ill kittens back to health.The volunteer program was put on...

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Town officials launched a new town website last week offering improved usability for site visitors and municipal employees, easier navigation and notifications for news and events.The revamped website presents the most-used resources for...

Staff Report

BELCHERTOWN — Four people arrested during the breakup of a pro-Palestinian encampment on the University of Massachusetts campus in May agreed to dispositions Monday in Eastern Hampshire District Court in which they will enter a four-month diversion...

By EMILEE KLEIN

FLORENCE — Morey Phippen and Brian Adams’ yard looks nothing like the traditional blanket of green grass associated with suburban lawns.Instead, bumblebees and butterflies bob and weave around her destined for the nearby foxglove, pink primrose, red...

Regarding the Horseracing Wrongs protest on Belmont Stakes Day at Saratoga racetrack: I’d like to note that there were over 50 protesters against this cruel and deadly “sport” in attendance. Yes, we were ignored, laughed at, and sometimes treated with...

I write to express my wonder about Amherst’s so very beautiful Sweet Alice pond and trails. We are so very lucky, blessed even that it can exist amid us, and be managed by the totally socially and ecologically responsible Kestrel Land Trust.Idyllic...

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Residents shot down the proposed $122.6 million middle school building at Monday’s special election, bringing the project to an end and denying a $47.9 million grant from Massachusetts School Building Authority to offset the cost.The...

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — When Jennifer Whitehead heard that the now-closed Taggell School hindered her child’s ability to learn in the first two years of his schooling, it nearly broke her heart.The sound the lights made, the slippery long hallways and the...

As a teacher at JFK Middle School, I am heartsick. We are not looking down the road at the potential harm of budget cuts; we are feeling it today.In many ways, the mayor’s starkest (4%) cuts have already taken effect. Anyone who received a pink slip...

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Without any money to spend on the latest 1990s entertainment, teenage Tracy Taylor amused her young son by rolling down grassy hills at the Quabbin Reservoir, giggling with big smiles once the two reunited at the bottom.“I think we just...