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By RUTHERFORD H. PLATT

As a “senior citizen” myself, most of my older friends and mentors are dwindling away. On Tuesday evening, May 27, a longtime role model and friend, Alexander Polikoff, passed away peacefully in Keene, New Hampshire at the age of 98 with his family at his side. Although I saw more of Alex at our monthly lunch and conversation visits over the past three years than previously, I have known and admired him as a brilliant and tenacious civil rights lawyer since my early career as a fledgling environmental lawyer working in downtown Chicago in the late 1960s, near his public interest law firm.

By RUTHERFORD H. PLATT

Northampton’s purchase of the old First Baptist Church in June 2023 for $3.175 million, twice its market value at the time according to a privately funded independent reappraisal, was a huge blunder. The concept of a “resilience hub” as a day drop-in...

By RUTHERFORD H. PLATT

On Jan. 5, 2023, the Northampton City Council celebrated the new year by allocating $1 million to each of Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra’s two trophy projects: “Picture Main Street” and the Resilience Hub. These amounts were drawn from the COVID-era...