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Recently, nearly 200 donors, legislators and media representatives toured our Emergency Department (ED) at Cooley Dickinson Hospital (“Cooley’s new ‘front door’ on display,” Gazette, June 7). Our long-awaited project, which is being completed in phases, expands the ED by 40%. It features new equipment, more private rooms and a floor plan designed with patients in mind. Earlier this year, we opened a dedicated space to provide a calm, healing environment for those needing mental and behavioral health support. Additional ambulance bays await our region’s EMS teams as they bring patients to our ED. The new addition opens in July and renovations in the existing ED continue through early 2026. Our ED is open throughout the project.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — In a repeat of last year’s outcome, the City Council on Wednesday failed to approve Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra’s budget for next fiscal year, owing in large part to the council president’s legal inability to cast the deciding vote.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton Reparations Study Commission will ask the city to extend its operations for an additional year, amid contentious debate among members over whether additional public input from Black community members is needed before submitting recommendations to the City Council.

The Northampton Education Foundation had its 28th Annual Plant Sale on May 10 on the lawn of the Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School. Each year hundreds of plants are donated from backyards across the valley, and volunteers spend the night before the sale getting everything ready. The day brought with it all the weather that spring can muster, and plant lovers came from all over to see what they could add to their gardens. Everyone joined in the countdown to the 9 a.m. start time.

By BILL NEWMAN

Last Saturday, “No Kings Day,” saw large demonstrations in Northampton, Easthampton, Greenfield, Springfield, Sunderland, Cummington, Shelburne Falls, Pittsfield, Amherst, Granby, Williamsburg, Ashfield, Orange and Boston. They were among the more than 100 protests in Massachusetts and over 2,100 across the country in cities and towns, big and small. The common denominator? Devotion to resistance and the fervent hope, if not always the firm belief, that we can mitigate, if not totally prevent, the fascist takeover of the United States now in progress.

I am writing concerning the above-the-fold article titled “Panel not ready on assisted suicide proposal” (Gazette, June 5). The article references the current Massachusetts Bill H.2505, which is entitled An Act Relative To End Of Life Options. A close reading of this bill reveals that it supports medical aid in dying to terminally ill individuals, allowing them to enlist the help of medical professionals in order to end their suffering. Surely, journalists understand the power of words, and the emotional valence of the term assisted suicide brings to mind assisting a despondent, otherwise healthy individual take their own life. In contrast to this, medical aid in dying entails providing compassionate assistance to a terminally ill individual, allowing them to choose to end their suffering, in a well-informed and dignified manner. As the Gazette continues to cover this issue, I would encourage the editors to avoid coined terms and to refer to the proposed legislation as the end of life options bill.

Don’t go to Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark, and Norway) unless you want to be shocked by how advanced and better off they are than us, especially now. We just returned from a trip there. While I know there are big differences between our countries, and that they also have challenges too, we could still learn so much from them. Stockholm — no trash or dog poop anywhere to be seen. A person on our tour got sick and two hours later a doctor came to our hotel and wrote her an antibiotic prescription so she could rejoin the tour a couple days later.

By JOHN BERKOWITZ

I think it’s urgent that the current negotiations end the war in Ukraine soon, even if Ukraine has to make some territorial concessions and stay out of NATO. If we keep helping Ukraine escalate — such as its recent drone attacks on Russian bases housing nuclear-armed strategic bombers, and last year’s attack on Russia’s early-warning radars that damaged three out of a total of 10 — it will only bring even more suffering and devastation to Ukraine, while risking an unimaginably worse WWIII/nuclear war with Russia.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

The number of calls to Northampton Fire Rescue has nearly doubled over the last decade, leading the city to expand department staffing in next year’s fiscal budget, which begins July 1.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — The city on Thursday closed a portion of the sidewalk in its central downtown after engineering consultants found that the section posed “an immediate risk of collapse.”

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — Ever since moving to Florence 18 years ago, JoJo Howlett has had only one choice for where she fills her car with gas — the Citgo gas station in the village’s center, owned by Bob Gougeon and his family.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra has called for a public debate between her and the other two mayoral candidates in this year’s municipal election, proposing multiple public forums to be held before preliminary elections in September.

By OLIN ROSE-BARDAWIL

Two weeks ago marked 600 days since the war in Gaza began. Six hundred days and nearly 100,000 casualties later, many have woken up to the clear immorality of Israel’s assault on Gaza. However, there are still many Americans who cling to a few talking points that allow them to justify the brutality — talking points which, over 600 days in, seem just as tired and trite as the war itself.

The street fair Cultural Chaos, one of Easthampton’s biggest annual events, will return this year on Saturday, June 14, from 12 to 5 p.m. on Cottage Street in Easthampton.

Testimony I submitted to the Massachusetts Joint Committee on the Judiciary, June 3, 2025 in support of H.2052/S.1178: An Act to Reduce Mass Incarceration. Twenty-five years ago, when I began the Real Cost of Prisons Project, I naively thought if people understood the real costs of mass incarceration to people imprisoned, their loved ones and their communities and the hundreds of millions of dollars we pay yearly to keep people caged, they would see that this state-run, outrageously costly system harms, not helps, everyone involved.

NORTHAMPTON — A No Kings rally is being held on the steps of Northampton City Hall Saturday at 10:30 a.m.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — Count the city among those advocating for universal health care in the state of Massachusetts.

By LOLI VIANA

There comes a time when even the most well-intentioned frameworks outlive their usefulness. When the structures that once protected us begin to hold us back. Northampton prides itself on its fiscal prudence over the last decade, but the current budgeting framework — once necessary and right — is no longer serving our city. The refusal to acknowledge this shift and the reluctance to move toward a more needs-based approach are now causing real harm. It’s undermining our city’s ability to meet its most fundamental responsibility: to serve its people.

By DOUGLAS J. AMY

One of the main things that separates Republican politicians from Democratic ones these days is that the Democrats seem to still care whether people live or die. Not so much the Republicans. The fact is that the way Donald Trump and the Republicans are slashing vital government programs will inevitably result in the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans — and many more abroad.

I was glad to see another article about the upcoming Northampton elections. It is important for residents to know who is running and what choices we have. However, as a former trustee at Forbes Library, I was very disappointed to again see no mention of the library. Forbes Library serves the entire community. Many people do not realize that the board of trustees, the governing board of the library, is elected. The board is responsible for hiring and evaluating the director and for the oversight of the library budget and policies. It is important that people know who is running for a position on the board. There are seven trustees and this year four seats will be decided in November’s election. I hope more information about the Forbes Library Board of Trustees election will be forthcoming.

It’s no secret that western Massachusetts, like anywhere, is facing a profound political crisis. The Trump administration is tearing up the fabric of our society as ICE stalks our streets. With everything from Medicare to the Department of Education under siege, the very foundations of our lives are at stake. With simultaneous cuts to public services and disproportionate funding at the state level, we are confronting a precarious, dire moment.