(audio: Steve Connor addresses the City Council. Subscribe to NM Audio on iTunes) With dwindling job prospects, financial and personal problems and a rising suicide suicide rate, some reservists and National Guard members are struggling. Northampton’s veterans agent wants to help.    NORTHAMPTON – Returning veterans, national guardsmen and reservists are having trouble finding jobs, need [...]

With deed in hand, the Tremaine family is happy in their new Park Hill Road home  NORTHAMPTON – Six months after arriving here for his new job at the VA and quickly finding a house he thought was perfect for him and his family, Richard Tremaine is now the proud owner of the “Landfill House” [...]

    NORTHAMPTON – A reshuffling of federal healthcare services for veterans will combine Central and Western Mass. into one mega-region, centralizing its administration at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center at Leeds, it was announced this week.  The realignment, scheduled to take place in October, will provide a regional approach to healthcare [...]

King Street Zoning Forum Tonight NORTHAMPTON – Tonight’s public forum on proposed zoning changes for King Street will be held tonight (Wednesday, Sept. 29) at 7-9 p.m. at the Jackson Street School auditorium. The public meeting is the second of two planned by the city’s Zoning Revisions Committee (ZRC), which since June has been reviewing [...]

NORTHAMPTON – Jake’s, the popular “no-frills dining” restaurant in the heart of downtown, and the building that houses it at 17 King St., were sold July 15 by longtime owner Daniel Workman to a Westhampton couple, Gary J. and Carol A. Perman. Records from the Hampshire County Registry of Deeds show that the Permans paid [...]

NORTHAMPTON — At 10 in the morning on an intensely hot Friday, I walked into Halo Couriers, Brion Stracensky’s new bike shop at Roundhouse Plaza downtown. While he does sell bike gear,  Stracensky’s bread-and-butter is a messenger service. I had never met a bicycle messenger. In fact, I was under the impression that they had gone [...]

I have not been working in Northampton for very long, but something that has been abundantly clear since day one is that there are copious numbers of restaurants. They are everywhere. Some of them are chains. Some of them are one-of-a-kind. Some defy single-sentence descriptions. It’s no secret that money is tight in this economy, [...]

“The leaves that develop from the red protrusions grow more than a food in length and contain a toxic amount of oxalic acid, a substance that can cause illness if ingested. (This fact always impressed me.)” Martha Stewart, Martha Stewart Living, May 2010 I was given a nice bunch of rhubarb from the guys at [...]

Noho Pride, the all-volunteer organization that organizes Northampton’s annual Pride Parade and Rally, works year-round for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality in Western New England. The group, a member of the international network known as Interpride, has applied for tax-exempt non-profit status, and is looking forward to a strong, bright future. “We have developed [...]

Welcome to my first Tech posting on Northampton Media! I just finished reading “The Field Guide to Software for Nonprofits” from idealware. It’s dense and specific — exactly what I was hoping for as an individual who implements…you know…actual software. The book came recommended to me via one of my clients, and I’m so glad [...]

It was well after midnight in the early hours of 2010, nearing three in the morning. An after-hours party had manifested at the tiny two-bedroom downtown apartment I share with my wife Jessica, and revelry and libations were abundant. We did not worry about the neighbors (many of whom were present) or whether or not [...]