NEW SCOTLAND — News out New Scotland, the village of Voorheesville, and Voorheesville Central School District took on decidedly different tones this year. 

While the school district dealt with a social-media mess and incidents of antisemitism, it welcomed new leadership at its middle school and high school and proceeded with its $25 million capital project. The town continued to fine-tune itself, and new projects and resolutions to long-term ones have and will change the face of the village as it experiences a renaissance with new eateries opening and a facelift for the Old Songs venue.

Condos

In June, after three years and many meetings, the New Scotland Planning Board approved a 45-unit condo project slated to be built across the street from Town Hall. 

Long proposed as 50 units, the project was slimmed down in May because the developer could not meet New Scotland’s affordable-housing requirements and so did not receive the opportunity to build additional units.

The project was introduced in June 2021 as 72 apartments, a proposal that forced the town to make changes to its zoning law. Starting prices for the now-approved condos will be in the high $300’s to low $400’s.

Green energy and open space

In February, the town board continued a discussion about regulating large-scale battery storage systems in town. 

First presented in November of last year, Local Law E provides a framework “for the designation of properties suitable for the location, construction, and operation of battery energy storage systems,” which are a shipping-container-sized way to stockpile renewable energy.

The initial bill classified a battery energy storage system as either a Tier 1 or Tier 2 system; the latest update offers a Tier 3 classification. 

Tier 1 is a single residential system. It offers an aggregate energy capacity of up to 100 kilowatt-hours. A kilowatt-hour is a unit of measurement that signifies the amount of energy required to keep a device consuming one kilowatt, or 1,000 watts, running for one hour.

Tier 2 “is essentially if you have one or two of these systems on a site,” Councilman Dan Leinung said in February, “Those would be allowed anywhere in the town.”

Tier 3 defines the “really large” systems, Leinung said. “It would essentially be more than two or three of these [storage systems] together,” and be located either in the industrial zone or within 500 feet of it. 

In March, the town board and public got a look at the interactive cataloging of New Scotland’s natural resources.

The town received $50,000 over three years ago to map its natural inventory, which will be followed with a plan to preserve the resources. 

The funding allowed New Scotland to create an accounting overview of its natural assets and allow the town to have all of its resources — for example, its wetlands, streams, and viewsheds — accessible through interactive mapping. 

An open-space plan will follow the inventorying of the town’s resources.

The plan will outline the desired goals for the future preservation and enhancement of both the natural and man-made resources that are important to the quality of life in a community.

Explaining the resource inventory and subsequent mapping at the time of the award, Councilman Adam Greenberg said, if a resident or applicant to the planning or zoning boards had a question about a parcel of land, the property could be brought up on the mapping software to “see exactly what issues” the property “may or may not have.”

In September, approximately a year and half after last coming before the town with its proposal for a large-scale solar facility to be situated in a part of town not zoned for such big developments, RIC Energy was back with a plan to install a 4.55 megawatt solar farm in a less conspicuous area of town.

The 19-acre facility is proposed for what’s being called 2373 New Scotland Road, 44 acres of currently-addressless land nestled between the homes of Crow Ridge Road and National Grid’s right-of-way. 

The facility would be a community-distributed generator of green energy, meaning that, once it is up and running, local residents could subscribe to “receive” a portion of the project’s clean electrical energy output.

The project is still under review. 

Town spending 

In October, the Albany County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of a man believed to have caused thousands of dollars in damage to a New Scotland park the month prior, forcing the town to spend thousands more to fix and protect it. 

Jeremy M. Stark, 35, was arrested following a complaint from the town of New Scotland about damage at the Feura Bush Town Park, according to a release from the office. He “was captured on surveillance video driving his ATV on park property and recklessly caused damage to the basketball court,” and charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief. 

The town in September allocated $30,000 of American Rescue Plan Act funds to fix and fence the court. New Scotland received the first of two roughly $300,000 ARPA payments during the summer of 2021, receiving the second a year later. 

The allocations included:

— $199,000 for playground equipment at two of the town’s parks, on Swift Road and in Feura Bush;

— $155,675 for four change orders at the Hilton Barn project;

— $50,000 for a senior van;

 — $30,685 to install a chain-link fence at the town’s Clarksville wells:

— $23,000 to streamline the town’s general code; and

— $3,400 for equipment to livestream town meetings. 

The remainder was recently allocated for Hilton Barn increased costs. 

In November, it was announced that New Scotland Senior Liaison Deb Engel had secured a $120,000 state grant through Senator Neil Breslin’s office to purchase a new bus for the town’s senior citizens.

“I have to say it’s actually kind of lightning speed for DASNY [Dormitory Authority of the State of New York] to approve this so quickly …,” Leinung said during the town board’s November meeting. “I give a lot of credit to Deb for literally finding who the person was in charge of this at DASNY, and literally weekly calling them and leaving messages for them.”

New Scotland’s senior transportation capabilities have been at half capacity since 2020 when it was determined repairing one of the town’s two senior buses would be too expensive, which led to the town board declaring it surplus and the bus being sold at auction.

The town board has also allocated $50,000 of pandemic-relief funds for its new senior van.

Union contract

The town board in November ratified a new contract with 15 members of the town’s Department of Public Works Blue Collar Unit.

In July 2023, the workers from New Scotland’s highway, water and sewer, mechanic, transfer station, and parks departments signed a letter asking the town to voluntarily recognize their right to unionize. 

The town did so a month later, with the Civil Service Employees Association acting as the bargaining agent for the workers. The negotiation played out over the past year.

The contract establishes the labor-management framework, setting up formal channels for communication and dispute resolution while implementing disciplinary process safeguards, union representation guarantees, and a benefits structure. 

Atlas Copco

In April, Atlas Copco, a village mainstay for four decades, looked for permission to increase its compressor operations in America by proposing a $40-million expansion of its School Road facility. 

The compressors have become an essential part of the burgeoning sector of American manufacturing that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and captures and sequesters carbon, including ethanol production, cement manufacturing, and power generation. These industries are able to reduce climate-changing greenhouse gasses by capturing carbon-dioxide emissions and permanently storing it underground.

But due to space constraints, Atlas Copco has been unable to make the larger compressors stateside, instead having to import them from its plants in Germany.

To overcome these logistical challenges, Atlas Copco received permission from the village’s planning commission this summer to build a six-story, 63,000-square-foot addition to its current 101,000-square-foot facility.

The project also received a handout from the Albany County Industrial Development Agency, which approved $4.6 million in tax breaks for the project: a $2.94 million property tax break and $1.63 million in savings from sales and use taxes. 

Train-car collision

In February, nine sheriff’s deputies responded to an incident of a car being rammed through by a train in Voorheesville. 

On Feb. 28, “When a train horn was heard in the distance, a bystander went up and convinced” Kyle Jacobson of Voorheesville “to leave the motor vehicle and wait a safe distance away,” according to the sheriff’s report of the incident. 

Jacobson’s red Honda Accord was subsequently hit by a CSX freight train, damaging his car, according to the report. Following the collision, Jacobson re-entered the damaged car, which was still running, and sat in the driver’s seat, where police found him upon arriving at the scene. 

Jacobson did not sustain injuries during the incident, and refused evaluation by emergency medical services

Jacobson eventually “submitted to a chemical test,” which showed he had a blood-alcohol level of .26 percent, more than three times the legal limit of .08 BAC. 

Jacobsen had no prior arrests for driving while intoxicated, the report said, and was charged with aggravated DWI after the incident. He was also charged with first-offense DWI, moving from a lane unsafely, and first-offense operating a motor vehicle with a blood-alcohol content of .08 of 1 percent or more.

Quiet Zone

During its November meeting, the Albany County Legislature approved resolutions to enter into funding and construction agreements with the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York and CSX, respectively, for the installation of four-quadrant quiet-zone gate systems at Voorheesville’s Main Street and Voorheesville Avenue railroad crossings.

The installation of the gates, which has an estimated cost of $289,000,  means engineers will no longer have to blow their horns as they approach and travel over the two crossings. 

The project will be paid for with two DASNY grants, one which was secured long ago by then-Senator George Amedore and the other — $80,000 through Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy — that has held up the project for years. 

It took so long to wrench the $80,000 from DASNY because the type of funding, a State and Municipal Facilities Program (SAM) grant, requires the recipient to own the local project being funded — in this case, the gate system, which CSX typically owns and operates. 

In December 2023, the village made the argument that the Quiet Zone could qualify as an “environmental project” under the SAM Grant guidelines, given that noise impact is a recognized environmental concern.

In August of this year, Mayor Rich Straut said that the state bought the argument. “They were all very skeptical about it, but said, ‘You know what?’ We’ll run this up the flagpole. We’ll run it by DEC,’” Straut recounted at the time, to which the Department of Environmental Conservation replied, “‘Yes, it’s an environmental project,’ which basically broke the roadblock.”

VCSD

In October, James Southard, Voorheesville’s assistant superintendent for finance and operations since January 2021, died unexpectedly. He was 51.

Southard died “after complications from a brief illness,” according to his obituary. 

He was hired by the district in November 2020, telling The Enterprise a few months later about what he hoped to achieve in his time at Voorheesville: “I think the goal whenever you go to a district is to try to make sure you leave it a little better than you found it. And that’s pretty much it. I mean, it’s making sure we have the systems in place to accomplish everything. We need to make sure we’re watching every penny, because it’s the taxpayers’ money.”

In personnel moves, the district in May selected Brianna Olsen as the next principal of its middle school. Olsen took over for Jennifer Drautz, who retired after nine years at Voorheesville.  The announcement came on the heels of the district’s recent appointment of Lisa Cardillo to lead Clayton A. Bouton High School. 

In September, The Voorheesville School Board had a quiet first-of-the-new-school-year meeting following allegations made by parents and former employees of the district’s universal pre-kindergarten provider.

Over the summer, a Voorheesville parent and former employees came forward with allegations that Christ the King Early Childhood Education Center in Guilderland had been “poorly managed.” 

The director of the program has since taken a leave of absence.  

Also at the September meeting, attendees of the meeting were updated about the district’s $25.3 million capital project, which includes a new long-awaited bus garage for $6.6 million; upgrades at the elementary school for $9.9 million, and another $5.8 million in incidentals such as construction soft costs like architectural, engineering, and legal fees, as well as new project furniture, and a $2.5 million contingency

Board member Matthew Bergeron’s social-media commentary following Donald Trump’s election ignited online controversy.

In a post, Bergeron expressed criticism of Trump voters, stating they had “voted for chaos, r*pe, habitual lying, indecency, and unbridled selfishness,” making the job harder for educators to teach children to “tell the truth, treat others with dignity, be empathetic, and always treat others with decency.”

The post gained broader attention after being reposted by the controversial social-media account Libs of TikTok, which boasts 3.7 million followers and is known for targeting left-leaning posts and posters. 

In December, parents were made aware of an act of antisemitism was reported by the school district. 

The district, in a Dec. 18 post on its website, said, “On the afternoon of December 17, 2024, our safety monitor discovered vandalism during routine bathroom checks on our MS/HS campus. This included a racial slur and a swastika. We want to ensure you are informed of the incident and the actions taken by the district.”

“Shortly after, a middle school student was identified as responsible for the vandalism,” the district said in its post. “Middle School Principal Brianna Olsen and Secondary Assistant Principal and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Liaison Cathleen Goodwin met with the student and their family to address this behavior. In accordance with our student Code of Conduct, all appropriate disciplinary actions are being taken.”

In April, the district announced, swastikas were found “etched into a music stand” in a district school. 

And at its Dec. 9 meeting, the school board heard from parent Lauren Mondanaro about the antisemitism she said her son has endured. “The unfortunate situation is my son has started to have a target on his head in the sense that every day he is being called a Jew,” she said.

But it’s her son who’s had in-school suspension, she said, because a “student pushed him to the limit at a school event,” which was on camera and witnessed by an adult who “did not know the pretense that led up to it.”

Mondanaro said her son’s situation is one that she herself “feel[s] daily,” because he’s being “called a dirty Jew on a daily basis.”