The withdrawal came as a surprise to both IDA board members and staffers as attorneys for the agency were negotiating with Pyramid over the subsidy right up until the day before IDA Chief Executive Officer Donald Csaposs received the March 20 letter informing him that Pyramid would forgo the multi-million dollar exemption.

ALTAMONT — The judge presiding over the defamation suit filed by Jackie Silvestri-Edwards, former owner of Farmhouse Tap + Tavern and founder of the 518 Foodies site, on March 20 denied a defendants’ motion to dismiss the case, an indication that the court found Silvestri-Edwards’s initial claims to have a sufficient legal basis.

On March 18, Mayor Kerry Dineen, trustees John Scally and Sandra Serafino, and Justice James Greene each received new four-year terms, but most saw unforeseen opposition. 

Guilderland in its letter states “that the FEAF and Draft Concept Plan are deficient and incomplete, and do not allow for a proper consideration of the significant and permanent environmental impacts that would arise from the construction of a temporary 750-space parking lot.”

Site work is slated to begin soon on approximately 28 acres along Western Avenue to make way for Costco as well as a 105,000-square-foot regional cancer center between the price club and Hilton hotel. 

The village property tax rate would increase three-quarters of 1 percent next year, from about $1.36 per $1,000 of assessed value this year to approximately $1.37 per $1,000 next year.

“We have felt some effects from the new administration down in Washington,” Albany County development chief Kevin O’Connor said during a March 4 meeting of the county’s IDA. 

The $614 million facility sits on a 72.5 acre site and is part of the state and semiconductor industry’s $10 billion investment in semiconductor research at the University at Albany. 

The district in an email to parents said it “could not secure an affordable community-based provider during the required bidding process.”

The district’s proposed $34.5 million spending plan includes a 6.05 percent increase in the tax levy, nearly the maximum allowed by the state, 6.4 percent.