A Berne GOP candidate has filed suit against the Albany County Board of Elections and his opponents in order to prevent two absentee ballots from being opened due to a former ruling specific to the county. These ballots could change the majority on the town board town board.

For Rensselaerville, rates charged by the Rapp Road landfill will be increasing by $10 a ton, leaving the town’s transfer station to reject bulkier items in the coming year to save money.

The Altamont Reservoir is worth a third of the value at which the town of Knox, where the reservoir is located, had assessed the property.

In Westerlo, Councilman William Bichteman will be stepping down in January. Bichteman has done the bulk of the work on many of the town’s projects in Westerlo, and his ouster has led to questions about what this means for the supervisor he has assisted.

“Deck the Halls,” an original musical by Penny Shaw, will be performed this weekend by the Hilltowns Players in the troupe’s 35th year.

After holding a public hearing, the Westerlo Town Board adopted its 2018 town budget. Westerlo will stay under the property tax cap with a 1.84-percent tax levy increase, but is anticipating exponential increases over the years in fees for garbage and ambulance services.

An absentee ballot count for the town of Berne left the GOP candidates holding on to the supervisor and the town council seats. But the Democratic candidate Joel Willsey is only one vote behind Republican candidate Frank Brady. Two votes that were brought in excess of the eight-ballot minimum by Democratic Party Chairman Gerald O’Malley have not been counted, and the GOP intends to file a lawsuit to keep it that way.

Linda VanAller Hernick, a former cytotechnician and paleobotanist, has written a book on exploring the world of freshwater microorganisms in ditches and ponds surrounding her Rensselaerville home. She hopes others will be encouraged to partake in this little-known study.

In a race that had all seats contested, unofficial results show Republican nominees won the town supervisor and town board seats by narrow margins.

KNOX — Although Democrats outnumber Republicans in Knox by nearly 2 to 1, the Republican-nominated candidates took all of the seats up for election.