The Lunar Codex, says its creator, is “a message-in-a-bottle to the future, a snapshot of our generation. Our hope is that future travelers who find these time capsules will discover some of the richness of our world today.

The Albany Water Board, steward of the Basic Creek dam in Westerlo, has received $100,000 from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to come up with a design for a rehabilitation project for the high-hazard dam, which is in substandard condition.

A digital equity map, put together by a coalition of organizations including the New York State Education Department and the New York State Library, shows that approximately 15 percent of Hilltown households don’t have internet access, whether because they don’t have an internet subscription or because they don’t have internet-capable devices.

The Berne Town Board held a public hearing on a new animal-control law this week and received mostly minor suggestions for alteration from a public that seemed largely pleased with the proposed regulations. 

The New York Coalition for Open Government, a not-for-profit advocate for government transparency, says it filed two Freedom of Information Law requests with the Albany County Board of Elections for meeting minutes last summer, but the board never acknowledged either.

New York State has released its first annual greenhouse gas emissions report, and it paints a dire image. While emissions are down somewhat from 1990, the report shows the state has a long way to go to achieve the goals it laid out in its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act by the self-set deadline of 2050.

At Knox’s inaugural 2022 meeting, more information came spontaneously to light about why the town fired three transfer station workers in 2019 — two of whom sued the town and later settled.

In an otherwise perfunctory meeting, the Berne Town Board made two key appointments on New Year’s Day: Albert Thiem to the town board, replacing former councilwoman Bonnie Conklin, who resigned; and former State Supreme Court Justice and convicted felon Thomas Spargo as chairman of the zoning board of appeals.

Sheep farmer Emily Vincent, who has previously been harassed by Berne’s code-enforcement officer and highway superintendent, has been ordered to replace a culvert near her property in spite of the fact that it runs underneath a town road.

Various charity organizations have given away thousands upon thousands of pounds of food to Hilltowners in need this year.