The state’s workforce rebounded in the second half of the last decade before dropping significantly with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report released this week by the state’s comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli.

“We are passing a bond but we are not raising taxes,” Commissioner William Kanas stressed, explaining that the district had set aside money each year for repairs to the massive firehouse it built 20 years ago.

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.

We at The Altamont Enterprise greatly value the free exchange of ideas on issues important to our community. Our newspaper covers issues in Albany County, New York focusing on the towns of Guilderland, New Scotland, Berne, Knox, Rensselaerville, and Westerlo.

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.

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.

SUNY Polytechnic Institute was one of the first round of awardees of the $40 million New York State Biodefense Commercialization Fund. Researchers at SUNY Poly got a $500,000 grant to develop a more affordable and accurate 30-minute COVID-19 antibody test.

ALBANY COUNTY — After five weeks in a row of being labeled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with a high community level of COVID-19, Albany County this week was