RENSSELAERVILLE — After a couple brought up concerns they had with a neighbor’s property and an official’s response to those, the Rensselaerville Town Board is reviewing the situation to ensure that the town’s code is being properly upheld. 

The Rensselaerville Town Board gave a town attorney the go-ahead to draft an agreement with the Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region to create a non-endowed fund from which the town can use up to 90 percent of the interest earned off the $830,000 Kuhar Endowment Fund.

The town of Berne has filed an Article 78 proceeding against Governor Kathy Hochul in an effort to make her appoint someone to the town board, creating a quorum that the board has now lacked for months. 

The cooperative, located at 303 Main Street in Schoharie, offers a variety of handcrafted items for sale from more than 20 artisans, each of whom had been selected by a five-person panel. 

Normally, a town’s reorganizational meeting is when it affirms salary schedules and other important town business for the year, but without a quorum on its town board, it’s unclear how the town of Berne has proceeded.

Veterans Miracle Center Executive Director for Community Relations Michelle Viola Straight told The Enterprise that it will lose around 90 percent of its dry-food donations, creating a massive hole for the not-for-profit as the need rises drastically. 

The vagaries of New York State’s ability and willingness to involve itself in local affairs cropped up in many Enterprise stories this year, and revealed the gaps in the patchwork system of agencies that are supposed to keep the machine running. 

Holiday fires in R’ville part of a larger trend

The Albany County Legislature has authorized an increase of the hotel occupancy tax rate from 6 percent to 6.5 percent as a way to fund tourism initiatives, with all GOP members opposed to the measure. 

The $830,000 entrusted to the town of Rensselaerville two years ago has been tied up in red tape ever since, but an attorney for the town recently announced that the town has been granted a cy prés to move the funds to another trustee, which he said was the “major hurdle” in the ordeal.