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Photos: Historian Alice Begley Honored at Schoolcraft House

A native redbud tree stands in front of the Schoolcraft House, and a plaque dedicating it to Alice Begley, who served as the Guilderland town historian from 1994 to 2016, was celebrated on Wednesday, Sept. 14, in an event hosted by the Guilderland Garden Club.

Two juveniles arrested after car theft

BETHLEHEM — A 17-year-old from Albany and a 16-year-old from Waterford were charged with felonies after a Bethlehem Police officer noted a stolen car in August.

Police did not release their names because of their ages.

A release from the Bethlehem department described events unfolding this way:

Clean-air activists rail against Port of Coeymans expansion

by Noah Zweifel

Barbara Heinzen, of the Albany County Clean Air Coalition, maintains that the Port of Coeymans expansion plan, which was approved by the state, will have serious effects on the region’s environmental quality because, she says, Coeymans’ air quality laws are less stringent than those of the county.

Smooth opening with capital projects completed, COVID restrictions lifted

by Melissa Hale-Spencer

The district was “very active” in the nine weeks over the summer getting work done on capital projects  — one passed in 2019 and the other in 2021 — said Assistant Superintendent for Business Neil Sanders.

Week CXXXII: Pandemic not over but being managed, task force proposes annual screening for depression

by Melissa Hale-Spencer

On Tuesday, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, issued the draft of a proposal that would have adults younger than 65 screened annually for depression. The World Health Organization in March had released findings that, in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, “global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by a massive 25 percent.”

Albany Country Club proposes 254-unit development

by Sean Mulkerrin

The club recently submitted formal plans to the town of Guilderland seeking to change its zoning designations from rural agricultural and single-family residential to that of a Country Hamlet District.

Matteson charged with attempted murder

BETHLEHEM — Adam J. Matteson Jr., 36, of East Greenbush was charged on Saturday morning with six felonies including attempted murder after, police say, he assaulted two people in Selkirk on Friday night.

As booming indoor track program seeks more coaches, GCSD leaders say: No funds available

by Melissa Hale-Spencer

Coach Chris Scanlon said that the indoor track team is about the same size as the outdoor track team, which has seven full-time coaches compared to only three for indoor track.

Guilderland Planning Board OKs site plan for contentious tree operation

by Sean Mulkerrin

The Guilderland Planning Board OK’d the site plan with conditions it would like to see the zoning board, the lead agency, impose on the applicant, Kyle Trestick. 

Bernard Melewski — a master of the art of lobbying — shares stories of fighting to save the Adirondack Park

by Melissa Hale-Spencer

ALTAMONT — Bernard Melewski has spent most of his life working as an environmental lobbyist, and eight years writing a book about it.

“Inside the Green Lobby: The Fight to Save the Adirondack Park” has just been published by the State University of New York Press.

Elizabeth Garry

Garry honored for work in juvenile justice

“My colleagues and I have issued a strong series of cases trying to help ensure that children’s privacy and confidences are protected by their attorneys and the court,” said Justice Elizabeth Garry in accepting the Howard A. Levine Award. “We have issued others upholding the requirement that children be zealously and competently represented in these life-changing circumstances.”

Photo: Apartments razed to make way for parking lot

The four-unit apartment building at 40 South Main St. in Voorheesville was razed on Wednesday to make way for a parking lot for the not-for-profit Business For Good’s Blackbird Tavern on the corner of South Main Street and Voorheesville Avenue.

Photos: Banding birds in the bush

The Albany Pine Bush Preserve's conservation director, Neil Gifford, related the story of a male prairie warbler who was first banded in 2014 in the King’s Road Barrens the year after his birth and recaptured there again in 2016 by Dillon as part of the preserve’s prairie warbler migration research. Gifford captured the same bird again in the Madison Avenue Pinelands in 2017 and collected blood and feather and claw samples to assess the quality of its winter habitat. He was captured the next summer, too, at the King’s Road banding station, and then not seen again until this past August when a volunteer, Allen Landes, photographed him in the Madison Avenue Pinelands. “It is simply stunning to think about the things this little 8-gram bird has experienced during his nine 4,000-mile round trips between the Albany Pine Bush Preserve and the island of Hispaniola …,” said Gifford. “According to the USGS, he is now one of the four oldest documented prairie warblers in the USA.”

Meadowdale Road row over rubbish

by Sean Mulkerrin

Elliot and Nancy Greene, the across-the-street neighbors of Bernard Radtke, were before Guilderland’s zoning board on Sept. 7 looking to appeal a determination made by the town’s zoning administrator, which said Radtke was allowed to keep more than one large commercial dumpster on his property. 

Knox close to PILOT for private solar array, installation of municipal array

by Noah Zweifel

RIC Energy has tentatively agreed to the Knox Town Board’s request for $30,000 annually as a payment in lieu of taxes. Construction of the company’s 5-megawatt solar farm will begin once the agreement is formalized. Meanwhile, Supervisor Russell Pokorny says he hopes another array — an 80 kilowatt array being built by the town with grant money, on Street Road — will be finished later this year. 

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