BERNE — The town’s highway superintendent — a Republican in a town governed by a council of all Democrats — left on a planned trip to Maine at 2 p.m. last Friday afternoon. That evening, he heard from two of his six full-time highway workers: They had been fired by the town supervisor.
"We'll do triage," Knox's Superintendent Vasilios Lefkaditis, told the town board as he showed pictures from a recent tour indicating problems at the highway garage and transfer station he said are too expensive for town funds to cover.
Marie Wiles proposed a spending plan for next year for Guilderland schools that stays under the near-zero levy limit set by the state and does not cut any programs or staff.
The Berne-Knox-Westerlo School voted to support sharing a football team with Duanesburg, knowing that board had voted down the plan, 4 to 3. The BKW superintendent urged football supporters to attend Duanesburg's next board meeting.
"We’re going to have to be creative," said Sarah Blood, the new business manager for Berne-Knox-Westerlo, as the rural district with declining enrollment is faced with stagnant state aid and committed to no tax increase.
“Our biggest nemesis is the corrosion of the bodies,” Guilderland's transportation supervisor, Danielle Poirier, told the school board, urging replacement of buses every 10 years.
