A Look Back: March 13

50 Years Ago

■The March meeting of the Ryan Road Parent-Teacher Organization will be held Tuesday. The guest speaker for the evening will be John Bresnahan, chair of the foreign language department for the Northampton school system. His subject will be “The Value of French in the Elementary School.”

■Two local mental health associations are conducting a postcard campaign to urge the state purchase of the old Northampton School for Girls property to be used for a mental health complex. Negotiations on the sale price of the property will be the next step in the purchase, but the state has not yet contacted the property owners, the Williston-Northampton School.

25 Years Ago

■There will be full-day kindergarten classes at all four elementary schools in Northampton in the fall, paid for by cuts in other school programs. But parents who work and must juggle their kindergartners’ schedules aren’t home free. Only one full-day class will be created in each school, setting up a competition for slots that will be resolved by a lottery.

■The same construction company that renovated the JFK Middle School will build the city a new fire station. Aquadro & Cerruti Inc. of Northampton submitted the lowest bid yesterday to build a fire station off King Street. The apparent low bid was $3.208 million.

10 Years Ago

■Mayor David J. Narkewicz sounded a warning Tuesday about a $2.4 million gap in next year’s Northampton budget that could mean job cuts and reduced city services. In kicking off the first of six budget meetings over the next few weeks, Narkewicz laid out a gloomy picture for about 30 residents at the Senior Center.

■More than three years after Easthampton approved a new Stop & Shop supermarket at the site of Tasty Top, a lawsuit seeking to reverse that vote began in Hampshire Superior Court Tuesday. Kenneth Cernak, owner of Cernak Buick across Route 10 from the proposed site, filed suit in February 2010.

]]>