This feature offers links to selected articles that might be of interest to Amherst readers. I favor, in these postings, with a few exceptions, material that is not hiding behind a paywall. Hence, I have reduced my postings from sources like the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and MassLive which are doing some great reporting but which make their articles inaccessible without some sort of payment. On occasion, an article seems too important not to mention, and in such cases I will post it, and leave it for the reader to decide whether to pay for access. If you have read something that is germane to what I’ve been posting in this feature, please share the link in the comments section below.

Climate Change At Home: Region’s Forecast Is Hotter And Wetter by Chris Larabee (9/23/22). Following one of the warmest Augusts on record since 1895, climate scientists are expecting western Massachusetts’ climate to get hotter and wetter over the next century. The average temperature in August was 74.1 degrees, which is the warmest on record and is 6.5 degrees warmer than the average monthly temperature, according to data published by the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Association (NOAA) on Sept. 9. The previous hottest August was in 2018 at 73.5 degrees. The meteorological summer, from June to August, was the second-hottest on record at 71 degrees. This warming trend, however, is not a recent development, as the average mean temperature in the Connecticut River Valley has increased by approximately 2.5 degrees since 1895, according to NOAA data compiled by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

Amherst School Committee Uncertain About Role Of CRESS In Schools by Scott Merzbach (9/22/22).  In a district that has discouraged school resource officers and uniformed police from being in school buildings, members of the Amherst School Committee are expressing uncertainty about how the town’s new unarmed community responders will interact with students. Though no decisions have been made for deploying Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Service, or CRESS, responders in public schools, the committee on Tuesday began discussing the topic after being informed that a memorandum of understanding is being developed between Superintendent Michael Morris and CRESS Director Earl Miller.“I have a lot of concerns about where this is going, and my major concern is nothing is free,” committee member Irv Rhodes said. Rhodes said there seems to be mission creep for the new public safety department, observing that during its development schools were never mentioned in terms of the services that would be provided by CRESS. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

Battery Energy Storage System Eyed For North Amherst by Scott Merzbach (9/22/22). A vacant North Amherst parcel where a garden and gift store was located for many years could be used for an 18.87-megawatt battery system. Josh Lariscy, project development director for BlueWave Solar, told the Conservation Commission at its Sept. 14 meeting, where a hearing on a notice of intent filing began, that the project would fit into the state’s Clean Peak Energy Standard program that promotes renewable energy. Near the Sunderland town line, the project would be developed in proximity to existing solar arrays and would be a short distance from an Eversource substation, connected to that by overhead and underground wires. Battery energy storage systems enable energy from renewables, like solar, to be stored and then released when customers need power. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

Amherst Accepts Five Acres Near Atkins Which Will Provide Access To Conservation Land by Scott Merzbach (9/22/22). The Town Council has accepted a new parcel of open space that will include a small parking area open to the public, and which can be used for access to town conservation land and the Mount Holyoke Range. Councilors on Monday voted unanimously to approve the Conservation Commission’s acceptance of the undeveloped land at 1194 West St., a bit over 5 acres, from Wayland developer Paul Cole. The land, at the base of the range, was set aside as a permitted requirement of Cole’s seven-home cluster development across from Atkins Farms Country Market. Known as Vista Terrace, the project was developed by Apple Brook West LLC. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

Students And Community Members Protest Raytheon Technologies Outside Of Marcus Hall Engineering Career Fair by Caitlin Reardon (9/21/22). A small group of community organizers gathered outside of Marcus Hall to protest Raytheon Technologies and other defense companies’ presence at the engineering career fair held on Sept. 21. The career fair, aimed for all engineering students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, hosts over 70 companies across the four-day event, including companies such as Raytheon Technologies, Infineon, General Dynamics and Sensata Technologies. UMass and Raytheon Technologies have a history of partnering to conduct research through the university, the defense company primarily funding this research. Raytheon has also collaborated with UMass Lowell to develop the Raytheon UMass Lowell Research Institute. (Massachusetts Daily Collegian)

Are There Better Places To Put Large Solar Farms Than These Forests by Gabriel Popkiin (9/21/22). In Charlotte County, population 11,448, forests and farms slope gently toward pretty little streams. The Roanoke River, whose floodplain includes one of the most ecologically valuable and intact forests in the Mid-Atlantic, forms the county’s southwestern border. On a recent driving tour, a local conservationist, P.K. Pettus, told me she’s already grieving the eventual loss of much of this beautiful landscape. The Randolph Solar Project, a 4,500-acre project that will take out some 3,500 acres of forest during construction, was approved in July to join at least five other solar farms built or planned here thanks to several huge transmission lines that crisscross the county. When built, it will become one of the largest solar installations east of the Rocky Mountains. Although she is all for clean energy, Ms. Pettus opposed the project’s immense size, fearing it would destroy forests, disrupt soil and pollute streams and rivers in the place she calls home. (New York Times)

Southampton Select Board Hires Firm To Design Senior Center by Emily Thurlow (9/20/22). The town has enlisted an Allston-based architectural firm to complete a feasibility study to construct a new senior center. n a 4-0 vote, the Select Board approved the recommendation of the Ad Hoc Senior Center Feasibility Committee to hire the firm, Abacus Architects + Planners. Chairperson Chris Fowles was absent. Throughout the month of May and early June, the committee evaluated the viability of potential sites and properties for a future senior center. At the June 21 meeting, the committee requested that the Select Board send letters to some landowners whose property could be a viable site. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

African Heritage Reparations Assembly Discusses Amherst College Collaboration, Public Consulting Phase by Rory Liddy (9/20/22). With a final report due to the Town Council in June 2023, Amherst’s African Heritage Reparations Assembly (AHRA) discussed a collaboration with Amherst College and documentation for its public consulting phase during a Sept. 12 Zoom meeting. After a brief introduction, the meeting began with a special guest appearance from Sirus Wheaton, a senior at Amherst College and the current student body president, as well as president of the school senate. Wheaton expressed a longing on his behalf and those of his classmates to become more involved with helping Amherst’s Black community in any way possible. The student senate reached out to AHRA Chair Michele Miller in April to begin discussions of what this help might look like on a practical level, and Miller met with Wheaton individually at the beginning of September to bring the idea to reality. (The Amherst Reminder)

He Left Us Wanting More, The Way All Great Writers Do. UMass Forum Celebrates The Late Historian Stephen Oates by Steve Pfarrer (9/19/20). He was, as one admirer put it, an “artful biographer” who wedded careful research with a novelist’s storytelling skill to write movingly about a number of famous American figures: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Clara Barton and William Faulkner. And at a forum honoring the late Stephen B. Oates, the noted historian and former University of Massachusetts professor, speakers also said Oates had a unique ability to write about history from different perspectives — to remove or suppress the narrator’s voice from his books to give his readers a different way of looking at history. (Amherst Bulletin)

Amherst Block Party Draws Thousands To Downtown by Jim Russell (9/16/22). Thousands flocked to downtown for return of community’s late summer block party Thursday evening, with the waves of people kind of resembling Kenmore Square during a Boston Red Sox game.Trying to find parking anywhere near North Pleasant Street, closed to vehicular at 5 p.m., was harder than getting hold of COVID-19 testing kits in March 2020, early in the pandemic, when lockdowns, school and business closing swept the country. Many attending told The Republican it felt so good to be outside with swarm of people, mingling, congregating, sampling food, listening to music, watching circus acts, at the family-focused event first organized by Amherst Downtown Business Improvement District nearly a decade ago. (MassLive)

Fires Set At Amherst Regional High School Lead To Early Dismissal by Scott Merzbach (9/15/22). Small fires intentionally set in bathrooms at Amherst Regional High School Thursday morning led to students being dismissed early from the building, and all athletic events being canceled. For Amherst Fire Chief Tim Nelson, the incidents in which towel dispensers were set on fire is cause for concern. “A small fire can cause great disruption in terms of the school day, and can also create harm. It’s malicious, as well,” Nelson said. “It’s wrong all the way around” (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

Amherst’s CRESS Officially Kicked Off On September 6 by Rory Liddy (9/13/22). Amherst’s Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Service (CRESS) Department began active service on Sept. 6. The department provides an unarmed alternative to police response for various nonviolent calls as well as mental health support and community engagement. CRESS’s 10-member staff consists of seven responders, a program assistant, an implementation leader and Director Earl Miller. Eight staff members are from Amherst and/or lived in the town for a significant period of time preceding the department’s inception. The majority of staff are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and peoples of color), some are parents, some are University of Massachusetts Amherst students, some are young professionals fresh out of college and two members are foreign language speakers (Spanish and Swahili, respectively). All have at least some degree of experiences in social service. (The Amherst Reminder)

Blazing Their Own Trail: Only The Second Community In The Nation To Officially Commit To Reparations For Its Black Residents, Amherst Is In Important And Unchartered Territory  by Emily Thurlow (8/26/22).  The assembly’s creation in June 2021 is a key piece of a significant policy change in Amherst whose goals are enormous: A commitment to ending structural racism and achieving racial equity for Black residents. To meet those goals, spelled out in a December 2020 resolution, the Amherst Town Council voted to not only create the Black-majority African Heritage Reparation Assembly but also to establish a reparations fund and this summer set a goal of committing $2 million over the next 10 years aimed at repairing hundreds of years of harm perpetuated against Amherst residents of African heritage. Although a report from the Reparations for Amherst group has documented harms that have occurred in town — including racist deed covenants, which is a type of contract that imposes conditions on the use of land, to incidents in the public schools — Bridges, who was appointed to the assembly in August, said she felt that she could provide an authentic voice to the work being done by the group as a “fact check” of sorts. (The Valley Advocate)