The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance told The Enterprise this week that it leaves the definition of “active” membership for volunteer fire and ambulance groups up to localities passing property-tax exemption laws for those groups, meaning that members in supportive or honorary roles can still theoretically be eligible.

Financial data from the Carey Institute’s 2020 tax returns were recently published by ProPublica’s NonProfit Explorer, raising questions for both skeptics of the organization, who have been critical of the way the not-for-profit navigated its potential sale during the turbulent days of the early pandemic, and for The Enterprise, which has covered the organization from its earliest days.

Westerlo is the third Hilltown tax authority — after Knox and the Berne-Knox-Westerlo school district — to pass the exemption.

Pharmacist Zarina Jalal, who manages Lincoln Pharmacy in the city of Albany, has accused the Albany County Department of Mental Health of nepotism and unfairly redirecting patient prescriptions from independent pharmacies like hers to the Genoa Healthcare pharmacy that opened inside the department’s city headquarters in 2020. Department director Stephen Giordano denies all of the accusations. 

The Berne Democratic Committee has opted not to carry petitions that would support Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple in his bid for re-election, in protest of his silence following a Feb. 20 incident where sheriff’s deputies ejected Berne resident Kevin Crosier from a public hearing on the unjustified orders of the town’s supervisor, who admitted the removal was based on a personal grudge. 

The Berne-Knox-Westerlo School District is the second — and the largest — Hilltown tax authority to pass the 10-percent property tax exemption for volunteer firefighters and EMS members. 

Berne-Knox-Westerlo Superintendent Timothy Mundell made the proposal after correcting the district’s tax cap calculation, which had originally been 2.5 percent but now sits at 4.1 percent. He also prompted the board of education to consider upcoming changes to the Foundation Aid formula that will either level out aid to the school, or diminish it, depending on lawmakers’ decisions. 

Albany County is proposing to build a solar farm at 897 Watervliet Shaker Road in Colonie, near the airport. County residents can learn about the project and share their views at two upcoming meetings.  

Rensselaerville resident Richard Tollner, whose own abuse-related civil suit against a downstate diocese was halted when that diocese declared bankruptcy in 2020, says that these maneuvers by the Catholic Church are designed to deprive abuse victims not just of financial settlements, but what for many might be the closest thing to victory — the chance to be heard and acknowledged. 

Of the Hilltowns, Knox was the first town to grant the 10-percent tax exemption that New York State now allows for first responders, with the rest of the towns appearing likely to follow once they hold the required public hearings.