The county’s Fire Service Academy, a pilot program, will teach a free 40-hour course, starting April 1, at the East Berne firehouse. 

“We are seeing significant declines in early elementary enrollment and future kindergarten projections,” Superintendent Marie Wiles told the school board. “If that holds true, that is going to work its way through the whole organization and it will be really important that the district, as hard as it is, right sizes staff as that happens.”

On March 10, the county legislature approved $6 million for the Pine Hills Land Authority to maintain campus security and infrastructure as revitalization plans unfold.

“Two-thirds of studied species showed declines of more than 10 percent,” wrote Science editor Bianca Lopez in a summary of the study. “Many insects have the potential for rapid population growth and recovery, but habitat restoration, species-specific interventions, and reducing pesticide use are all likely needed to curb population declines.”

Joanne Cunningham, who chairs the legislature and represents part of Bethlehem, introduced the bill after the town of Bethlehem was not immediately informed about contaminants in New Scotland wells on property close to Bethlehem’s Vly Creek Reservoir.

The town’s Republican committee is holding a meeting on March 12 to find leadership, according to Mark Grimm, a long-time Republican county legislator, who is organizing the event.

The state has established an email address for businesses, including farms, to report the effects of the Trump administration tariffs. While the new policy begins to take effect, information provided to TariffImpact@esd.ny.gov “will help provide a real time understanding of the impact of the tariffs on the New York agricultural industry and other sectors across the state,” the governor’s office says.

Jesse Fraine, the town’s engineer, went over the schedule and answered questions from board members. The idea, he said, was not to increase rates for low users while moving away from the antiquated unit-based system, which is now rarely used.

No new applications will be accepted for developments of five or more single-family lots, for an apartment building with 25 or more units, or for an assisted living or independent living facility or a nursing home of 50 units or more.

The Mercury Refining Company Inc., originally known as MERECO, is at 26 Railroad Ave. on the sliver of land to the northeast of the panhandle of Albany that is located in Guilderland, and also partially in Colonie. From 1955 to 1998, Mercury Refining operated an industrial facility that recovered mercury from various materials, leaving the soil, groundwater, and sediment contaminated with toxic mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls, known as PCBs.