The Shoestring

A rundown of the last two City Council meetings: Northampton Weed Money, an Airbnb Tax, the City Charter Review, 27 new parking spaces and more. Meeting Agenda for January 17, 2019 Public Comment During public comment, Al and Sally Griggs, addressed statements made by community members who opposed Walmart’s donation of $13,000 worth of bullets […]

A Weekly Media Criticism from The Shoestring In a new weekly media column, The Shoestring will reflect on recent local news. Hierarchy of tragedy On Tuesday, January 22nd, buried on the second or third page of the ‘Cities and Towns’ section of the Gazette was a brief 278 word article titled “Man, woman found dead […]

Eduardo Samaniego was deported today after three months of fighting for his freedom.  By Brian Zayatz On the morning of February 1st, the Pioneer Valley Workers Center announced that after a nearly three-month highly publicized campaign for freedom, detained member leader Eduardo Samaniego would fly back to his native Mexico after being pressured into “voluntary […]

New Massachusetts house bills seek to decriminalize the selling of sex by Blair Gimma Last Wednesday, Rep Kay Khan of the 11th Middlesex District filed two bills, An Act Relative To Sexually Exploited Individuals (House Docket 1679), and An Act Relative To Codifying Protections For Sexually Exploited Children (House Docket 1681), in the Massachusetts State […]

The council gets shamed for requesting more information from the NPD and Walmart by Blair Gimma On Thursday January 3, the Northampton City Council held its first meeting of the year. Approximately ten people attended. For Context Though very little was on the meeting agenda, a number of people showed up to speak at public […]