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The homeschooling rate at Berne-Knox-Westerlo doubled during the pandemic and has yet to come down, leaving district officials to figure out how to attract students back into a formal school setting. 

The DEC directive became controversial in Guilderland in 2020 when Pyramid, owner of Crossgates Mall, cut trees to make way for a Costco, citing the need to do so to beat the deadline meant to protect the northern long-eared bats while advocates from Save the Pine Bush said the land had not been properly surveyed for the bats.

GUILDERLAND — The winter sports season is starting with an indoor track team at Guilderland that will remain inclusive: Any student who wants to do the work can participate.

BERNE — Peggy Filkins Warner says she learned to be independent from her grandfather.

“That’s where I got my attitude,” she said of her father and his father.

She was born in the Filkins farmhouse on Joslyn School Road in 1930, in an era when not a lot of women were involved in politics.

But now, nearly 12 months after it rescinded its objection to the deal, the village of Voorheesville finds itself in roughly the same position it did in December 2021, with the Quiet Zone project appearing to be back on track, only now Voorheesville could be looking at $50,000 in annual maintenance costs for the two safety gates it’s been pining after for a decade.

The new redistricting plan will follow the Albany County Legislature’s recommendation that the county concentrate minority voting power in five dense majority-minority districts rather than up to seven, which is what the original plan, rejected by the legislature, would have done. 

GUILDERLAND — Kevin Efaw was unanimously appointed by the Guilderland Town Board on Nov. 15 to the part-time post of provisional code-enforcement officer.

His wife, Darci Efaw, is the town’s comptroller.

ALBANY COUNTY — Numbers for Albany County are headed in the right direction this week — with infection and hospitalizations rates going down and sales-tax revenues and jobs going up.

“As I listened to the impassioned comments from everyone today and the kind of tone that I’ve heard so much in the last days, these words resonate,” said Guilderland Superintendent Marie Wiles of the SRO mission and how it is carried out.

Berne is the only one of the four Hilltowns whose tax rate was unchanged, with the others increasing between 1 and 2 percent, but not always for all residents.

As the town awaits the delivery of two dumpsters it needs to create an ad hoc transfer station while the old one gets torn down and replaced, service is expected to continue uninterrupted, Knox Supervisor Russ Pokorny told The Enterprise this week. 

Guilderland Conservation Advisory Council members appeared surprised by the turnout and content of the attendees’ public comments because its jurisdiction is environmental and the concerns raised by those at the meeting were largely traffic-related. 

The New Scotland Town Board unanimously adopted the budget at its Nov. 9 meeting, where it also discussed the need for new planning board members due to the impending resignation of Christine Galvin and previous departure of board alternate Robert Davies.

HILLTOWNS — Penny Shaw Bartley has always loved to sing and entertain people.

It started when she was a kid growing up on a farm in Michigan. She and her siblings worked in the fields, “hoeing out weeds and driving the tractor and feeding the animals,” says Shaw in this week’s Enterprise podcast.

Muriel Frasher was first appointed town justice in Rensselaerville in 2018 to fill a vacancy left by Dwight Cook, and, though she was unsure at the time whether she’d stay in that position, she was re-elected this November. 

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