Archive » December 2014 » News

Photos: Call of the wild

Time off from school doesn't mean that learning stops. The Pine Bush Discovery Center this week was filled with kids and their elders learning about the wonders of the inland pine barrens.

2014: Preserving history and setting as pressures mount for downstate energy

by Jo E. Prout

Residents here worked to preserve their history and their natural surroundings this year, while also preparing for future expansion and addressing current needs.

2014: Taxes over cap maintain services

VOORHEESVILLE — Voorheesville residents continued to enjoy the same quality of life as always, but paid a little bit more for it: 2014 marked the first time that the village exceeded the state-mandated 2-percent levy cap on property taxes, raising them 5 percent.

2014: Altamont lauded in book and song

by Elizabeth Floyd Mair

ALTAMONT — One change Altamont’s mayor, James Gaughan, was happy to see this year arose in response to what he calls the “maleficent looming specter” of the possible closure of Altamont Elementary School.

2014: Highway post contested, hilltop land purchased for town

by Marcello Iaia

BERNE — In 2014, the town was shaped in several ways by the hand of government, which was itself shaped in a close election for highway superintendent.

2014: A year of festivity and solemnity in Rensselaerville

by Melissa Hale-Spencer

The town lost an exuberant 12-year-old, Emmit Stannard, to brain cancer as well as long-time leader Myra Dorman, but life hummed with a new cycling festival and a gala to mark the fire department's 75th anniversary.

2014: Arson, murder, and a tornado gripped Knox

by Marcello Iaia

KNOX — In its beginning, middle, and end, 2014 brought headline-grabbing events to Knox, while it was marked in public by a drawn-out exchange toward revising the town’s vision to center on commercial zoning.

2014: Long-term deliberations frustrated by split votes

by Marcello Iaia

WESTERLO —  The town had a winding road of indecision in 2014 as it grappled with what to do about high-volume hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and hesitated to approve bids for badly needed repairs to the highway garage.

GCSD board wants to replenish rainy-day funds

by Melissa Hale-Spencer

Facing a much smaller budget gap for 2015-16, most Guilderland School Board members want to beef up the fund balance they have dipped into recently to keep taxes under the state-set cap.

Photos: Christmas deliveries

Toys bring joy to those who give as well as those who get. Santa's helpers were busy this past week throughout the region.

Photos: Fires plague Guilderland

Just before Christmas, two fires forced Guilderland residents from their homes.

Committee to urge look at repurposing schools

by Melissa Hale-Spencer

GUILDERLAND — The next step in solving the school district’s problem of too much space for too few students will likely be the appointment of a citizens’ task force to study different ways of repurposing some classrooms.

BKW to 'expedite' hiring new principal

by Melissa Hale-Spencer

After hearing protests, the Berne-Knox-Westerlo School Board agreed not to wait for a new superintendent to hire a new high school principal but it stopped short of forgoing its traditional selection process.

Photos: For the love of Kenny

Nine-hundred people gathered in front of the Berne-Knox-Westerlo Elementary School on Monday night for a candlelight vigil, memorializing kindergartner Kenneth White who was murdered last Thursday.

Candles raised in the darkness for Kenneth White

by Melissa Hale-Spencer

BERNE — At the darkest time of the year, nine hundred people stood shoulder to shoulder, holding candles and singing. Snow fell lightly Monday night, the flakes turning wet as they landed on faces and mittens and boots while the crowd stood in front of the elementary school at Berne.

They were there to mourn a little boy the vast majority of them did not know. Kindergartner Kenneth White was slain in his home last Thursday, police said, his body pitched over the snow bank across from the trailer where he lived with his twin sister and their younger sister. The 19-year-old daughter of their aunt and legal guardian stands accused of murder. Tiffany VanAlstyne, too, had once attended the school where the crowd gathered.

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