A Look Back: Oct. 4

■The new $400,000-to-$500,000 swimming pool for Look Park may be scrapped unless the park trustees can overcome a clause in the Frank Newhall Look trust fund limiting park improvements to $200,000 per project. The original pool proposal called for construction to begin this fall at the earliest, with fall of 1974 mentioned as a less optimistic assessment.

■Smith’s Vocational School last night received approval from the Conservation Commission to go ahead with plans for dredging and damming a pond off Route 9. The school is planning to use the one-fifth acre pond as a wildlife management study area.

■Members of a student leadership group at Northampton High School will offer guided tours of the building Sunday in an attempt to show how the 59-year-old structure has deteriorated. The 13-member Student Leadership Team hopes to garner support for a Nov. 3 Proposition 2½ debt exclusion override needed to cover the cost of upgrading the structure.

■Proponents of overhauling Northampton High School concede they face challenges in winning the support of voters next month. Even though the projected cost to taxpayers would be $1 a week, on average, supporters of the Nov. 3 Proposition 2½ override predict the project will be a tough sell, given that it would be the city’s third significant building project in four years.

■The Northampton Arts Council has looked to its own staff for a new leader as Brian Foote, the council’s arts administrator, has taken over for longtime director Robert Cilman. Foote, who began working as Cilman’s assistant with the arts council in 2012, said he is thrilled about his new role and looks forward to keeping the arts front and center in the city.

■The controversial fish ladder project in Easthampton that has been plagued with setbacks since construction began in 2010 is finally nearing completion. Mayor Michael A. Tautznik said the facilities that will allow migratory fish to bypass the dam on the Manhan River to spawn upstream should be finished by early to mid-November.