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By RUSS VERNON-JONES

The COVID pandemic — with its fear, and its quarantine, and its ongoing recommendations for limiting social contact — is still affecting us. Even if we are not among the many unfortunate individuals who are still ill with long COVID, our situation has changed. We are now living in a society where loneliness has increased and trust has decreased. As Jeet Heer wrote in The Nation, “In the wake of COVID, Americans have become more individualistic, more conspiracy-minded, and less committed to collective social effort.” We tend to be more separate from each other.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Three full-time positions at the Jones Library will remain vacant, as they have for the past six years, in the $3.09 million budget proposal recommended by the elected trustees.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

Several Amherst Regional High School students recently had the opportunity to travel to the State House to offer testimony to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means hearing, explaining to legislators why funding formulas for state aid to local school districts should be revised.

By CAROLYN BROWN

An Amherst festival dedicated to a famous Baroque composer is coming … Bach.

We have always been in favor of the Jones Library renovation and expansion. We think the improvements to the HVAC system and teh climate controlled space for Special Collections alone make it a worthwhile project. The addition of dedicated children’s and tenn space, in addition to the expanded ESL space and teh new display space for teh African American Civil War tablets, speaks to those citizens in our community whose interests and needs can be easily overlooked. The fact that the renovation doesn’t use fossil fuels and advances the building to a net-zero structure gives it another great advantage over the current structure. 

By JOHANNA NEUMANN

Humans are great at building things, but it’s also beginning to dawn on us that these impressive and sometimes magnificent structures also impact the other creatures that we share this earth with.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Professional mold remediation in the music and instrument storage rooms during April vacation, along with recent roof repairs and replacement of HVAC air filters, are among steps being taken to improve air quality at the Amherst Regional Middle School.

By EMILEE KLEIN

For the last two years, the Hitchcock Center for the Environment has aimed to help more than 1,000 third graders in Springfield Public Schools envision themselves as scientists and engineers.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Near annual challenges in putting together budgets for the Amherst and Amherst-Pelham Regional schools that meet the financial guidelines set by the Amherst Town Council is leading to the concept of forming a joint town and school task force, which would be responsible for examining educational needs over a five- to 10-year period.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Amherst Town Council is allowing the Jones Library expansion and renovation project to continue moving forward, nixing a measure that could have rescinded the borrowing authorization to pay for the work.

Many thanks to Gazette columnist J.M. Sorrell for putting us straight about spelling, grammar and word sources [“The official language,” April 2]. 

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Faculty at the University of Massachusetts are calling on Chancellor Javier Reyes and President Martin Meehan to form a compact with the 250 land grant and public universities across the country to fight Trump administration actions impacting academic freedom and free expression, including politically motivated detentions of students and faculty and visa revocations for some international students.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Responding to an online petition that collected nearly 250 signatures, officials at Amherst Regional High School have reversed a recent decision to close nearly all of the school’s bathrooms for students during lunch periods out of concern with a rising level of vaping indicated by vaping detection alarms frequently going off.

By TOM WASKIEWICZ

Small family farms are more than businesses; they are a way of life, shaped by generations of experience, sacrifice, and resilience. Every field plowed, every seed planted, every harvest gathered carries with it the wisdom of those who came before. But there’s no handbook for passing down this knowledge. Instead, it happens in the quiet moments — side by side in the fields, in conversations at the kitchen table, in the habits formed over years of hard work.

As pro-democracy protests spread across Massachusetts and the nation, many still overlook a primary ailment of our broken democratic system: in today’s elections, the candidate with the most money almost always wins. Campaign finance reform seems impossible, especially since the 2010 Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, which ruled corporate spending limits unconstitutional. As a result of Citizens United, political power in America has shifted dramatically towards wealthy corporations and billionaires. Americans on all sides of the aisle have lost trust in our democratic process — a February poll found that 72% of Americans see money in politics as a “very big problem,” more than any other issue polled.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — After a contentious debate, the Town Council agreed last week to recommend the town spend nearly $422,000 more on schools next year than originally recommended.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Three members of the Town Council have called for an emergency meeting on Monday at which councilors will decide whether to rescind all funding for the controversial Jones Library renovation and expansion project, which has been in the works for than a decade.

By STEVE PFARRER

Several years ago, Mattea Kramer, an Amherst writer and researcher who’s studied and written about the federal budget as well as drug policies at state and federal levels, spent time interviewing a number of women in the Greenfield jail who were part of a recovery program for substance use.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Both mixed-use and apartment-style developments will be allowed along a half-mile section of University Drive, under a new zoning overlay district.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — At the John P. Musante Health Center, where health services are provided to low-income and immigrant populations and others, exam rooms feature Immigrant Legal Resource Center posters explaining the constitutional rights for everyone living in the United States.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Using project-based learning in the classroom, building a supportive and welcoming place and treating all students fairly and equitably are how culture is built intentionally at Wildwood School.