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Will Gibney, at 17, has written a book about the dog that changed his life. “Toshi is my service dog,” says Will in this week’s Enterprise podcast. “He means so much to me because for years he’s been by my side.”

A Nov. 19 letter to the the appeals court states  former Voorheesville varsity girls’ basketball coach Robert Baron “is hereby withdrawing and discontinuing” his appeal of the lower court’s decision in his lawsuit against the school district. 

“It won’t stop all incidents,” said Matthew Pinchinat, Guilderland’s director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. “But it will show we do take them seriously.”

A violation of the state requirement for everyone to wear masks indoors when in public “is subject to all civil and criminal penalties, including a maximum fine of $1,000 for each violation,” according to the governor’s office. Local health departments are being asked to enforce these requirements. 

Starting on Thursday, Dec. 9, hospitals statewide with 10 percent or fewer unstaffed beds available had to cease non-essential elective procedures. Their capacity will be reevaluated in mid-January. “We want to be flexible,” said Governor Kathy Hochul.

On Tuesday, Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy issued a joint public-health advisory with Schenectady County Manager Rory Fluman recommending all residents wear masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status, and recommending businesses require employees and customers to wear masks as well.

The Nov. 1 notice to Clarksville Water District customers said water samples taken a few days earlier showed nitrate levels of about 13 milligrams per liter, or three milligrams per liter over the maximum set by the Environmental Protection Agency. The latest sample, taken in the past two weeks, showed the nitrate level had dropped over 1 milligram per liter.

The Helderberg Lake Community Association is hoping to fund necessary dam repairs with money borrowed from the town of Berne, which would need to create a special tax district to recoup those funds over 30 years, at a rate of $5.35 per $1,000 of assessed home value. 

 The twice-a-year fee, which is used to pay for 2013 upgrades to Altamont’s Gun Club waste-water treatment facility, will increase from $45 to $100 per user. 

The Open Meetings Law was amended early last month — effective immediately upon Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signing — to require that all public bodies post meeting minutes online no more than two weeks after a meeting occurs

The biggest factor in the revenue jump is the state’s commitment to make Foundation Aid to schools whole. That brought Guilderland an additional $1.5 million this year and will bring in $2.5 million next year.

The most important change in preparing for an active shooter is that faculty now has options. Formerly, the only choice was to go into lockdown. Now teachers can choose something different, like having students leave the school, which Guilderland High School Principal Michael Piscitelli said was “super powerful.”

A pediatric vial of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine

For the first time, two of the new cases are upstate — from Oneida County, near the center of New York.

During the November village board meeting, Steve Schreiber, chairman of the grassroots Committee for a Quiet Zone in Voorheesville, voiced concern with how the project has stalled since an August update.

More than a fifth of Berne-Knox-Westerlo’s secondary students were quarantined last Friday.

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