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All three Guilderland projects came under the heading of recreation and outdoor infrastructure.

Sixty percent of New York state is classified as a childcare desert, said Guinevere Gorman, a member of the board of directors of the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce. She also said the need for childcare is expected to grow by 5.9 percent in the next five years.

Berne-Knox-Westerlo’s contingency budget cut the school resource officer, whom the board of education had initially refused to cut from its tax-cap-busting 2024-25 budget, playing a key role in that budget’s failure in two separate votes, leading to a contingency budget. 

GUILDERLAND — A group of youths were spray-painting racial slurs on a Western Avenue sidewalk near Venezio Avenue last Sunday evening, Aug. 25, according to a release from the Guilderland Police.

An anonymous donation of $3.85 left by a child for the Westerlo Volunteer Fire Company’s new-building fund was matched 110 times by others, with some larger donations helping the surge reach a total of $523.85.

Emily Constance Rauch, an artist and former educator who lives in Rensselaerville, was awarded a grant from the Puffin Foundation that she will use to create a collage made up of trash, highlighting the reusability of commonly tossed items.

The length of negotiations is hardly unusual, both sides agree.

The Guilderland, Berne-Knox-Westerlo, Voorheesville, and Bethlehem school districts have released the income criteria for students to qualify this school year for free or re­duced-price lunches, breakfasts, and milk. All four dis­tricts have the same standard, based on family size and income.

Historically, from 1999 to 2023, according to the CDC, Albany County has had an incidence of 0.03 per 100,000 of population for West Nile virus human neuroinvasive disease.

The allocations were heavy on city programs. Two Guilderland organizations received funds, both under the recreation and outdoor infrastructure heading: the Altamont Fair and Guilderland Youth Lacrosse. The Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy also got funding in that category.

Current assessment challenges are nowhere near the scale of earlier years in Guilderland. “That’s good news,” said the school board president. “Please tell me when to panic.”

School board members are planning a retreat once the new member is appointed. While board members will be learning from workshops elsewhere, Superintendent Marie Wiles concluded that “learning as a team … is often more powerful.”

The Rensselaerville Water and Sewer Advisory Committee, which is actively working to upgrade the town’s water system, has received an administrative order from the United States Environmental Protection Agency for the water district’s repeated violations over the years around certain disinfection-byproduct contaminants.

Superintendent Marie Wiles said she would work with the district’s leadership team to put together a plan “to engage the community in relatively short order” on the topic of a smartphone ban throughout the school day. 

On Aug. 6, a lawsuit filed by Pine Bush Senior Living LLC — which had planned to develop 86 units of affordable senior housing on New Karner Road amid the Albany Pine Bush — asked the court to officially terminate a purchase and sales agreement it had with Pine Bush Parc LLC for 51 acres at 20, 22, and 24 New Karner Road. 

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