Amherst landlords now required to get licenses to lease their units 

After months of public debate, it took just a voice vote Monday for Town Meeting to approve a permit system for all rental properties in town. As of Jan. 1, landlords must pay $100 per rental property each year to register their units. There are more than 5,000 rental units in town, at 1,575 properties. Steve Bloom, a member of …0

Amherst College cuts ties with Little Red Schoolhouse preschool after 75 years

Eighteen preschoolers marked their final day at the Little Red Schoolhouse on the Amherst College campus last week in what will likely be the last such ceremony at the school that has operated there for 75 years. The college has asked the program to vacate the premises to make way for a construction project expected to pose hazards for the …0

The color, the scent, the sense of relaxation abound at Jim Lumley’s 10-acre Lilacland in Pelham

PELHAM — As Jim Lumley, proprietor of Lilacland in Pelham, headed down the gently sloping hills of his country oasis on Harkness Road one day last week, he was spotted wearing a purple shirt and a purple striped tie. He is a real estate agent, as well as a caretaker of more than 200 varieties of lilacs, and he has …0

Teen taste in footwear focus of downtown mural in Amherst

Kids like their footwear. “You can recognize my Vans shoes from a mile away,” says Tabitha Klamm, 17, of Amherst. And soon her Vans, with brightly colored laces, along with her other favorite pair of what she calls hipster shoes, will be represented on a new mural to be unveiled in downtown Amherst next month. The 40-by-5-foot piece is being …0

Amherst native Chris Demarest brings his portraits of WWII vets to Jones Library

Chris Demarest had heard a few stories about his father’s service in World War II — how Captain Robert Demarest had flown C-47 cargo planes between Burma and China, taking on storms and frigid cold to cross “The Hump,” the name pilots gave the eastern end of the Himalaya Mountains. But Demarest, a 1969 graduate of Amherst Regional High School, …0