GUILDERLAND — Gladys Kniskern O’Brien, a quiet and steadfast woman, was a student in a one-room rural schoolhouse who went on to be valedictorian of her high school and won a scholarship to Syracuse University, leading to her career as a teacher of Spanish and Latin.

She died on Tuesday, June 16, 2020. She was 90.

If the Capital Region’s metrics hold, movie and film production can start again on July 1 and museums, aquariums, and zoos can open at 25-percent capacity. Other industries will be authorized on an individual basis dependent on associated risk levels and the current health data. Outdoor theme parks, indoor malls, gyms, and movie theaters have not yet been cleared to reopen at the beginning of Phase 4.

“When this started,” said Governor Andrew Cuomo of COVID-19 in New York, “we had more cases per capita than any state in the country or any nation on the globe. But today, we have done a full 180, from worst to first.”

“What is really a revolutionary idea — that there is a space for people of color to assemble and share history and love of one another and bring that to walls outside of their own in a safe place,” said Travon Jackson, the executive director of the African American Cultural Center of the Capital Region.

As the governor calls for reform in police departments across New York State, the Albany County executive decries the 25 shootings in Albany since protests began three weeks ago and urges working together.

With mail-in ballots, Guilderland had triple the votes usual for its school and library elections — yet both budgets passed by wide margins.

Neighbors of the motel at 2019 Western Ave. were worried by “a large police presence” there on June 8, which police say “was a domestic incident with reports of shots fired inside” but investigation found “no evidence of any gunshots.”

“I think people need to realize that reopening is not flicking an ‘on’ switch. It’s a dial of continuum,” said Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen on Wednesday as the Capital Region entered the third of four reopening phases.

Mall brawls, a problem that had ceased with the shutdown of Crossgates Mall, has reemerged as mall stores with outdoor entrances reopen.

As the governor is requiring municipal police departments to come up with reform plans based on community input, Guilderland’s deputy chief, Curtis Cox, says his department has always welcomed public input, and already trains on strategies like de-escalation and has an anti-racial-profiling policy.