The Rensselaerville Town Board is hoping to get a number of properties in the town cleaned and up to standards, but won’t be receiving help for the most problematic one, on Sayre Road in Medusa, after the state Department of Environmental Conservation assessed the property and decided not to take action. 

Westerlo’s Zoning Board of Appeals Chairman George Spahmer said that the quasi-controversial application was approved 4-to-0 with one member abstaining. 

Sandra Kisselback, President, Berne Historical Society

Rebecca Haaland began Boosted Coatings five years ago when she was just 19. She sought to expand her powder-coating business to Westerlo, at Shepard Farm this year, inadvertently triggering a massive political battle that saw the town’s planning board eliminated.

Sandra Stempel-Kisselback, President, Berne Historical Society

Former Westerlo Planning Board Chairman Beau Loendorf submitted a letter to the Enterprise editor this week bemoaning the town board’s decision to abolish the planning board, among other things. The town supervisor and town attorney both issued responses that defended themselves and turned the blame back on Loendorf and the planning board.

Berne-Knox-Westerlo Superintendent Bonnie Kane is in her first month in that role, having previously served as the district’s high school principal for two years and as an English teacher before that. 

The former Carey Institute for Global Good in Rensselaerville has reorganized itself as Hilltown Commons, with new leadership that aims to ditch the “heady” and “highfalutin’” ideals of the globally-oriented not-for-profit, as the de facto executive Virginia Thomson put it, in favor of a grassroots approach to social betterment. 

The results still need to be certified by the New York State Board of Elections later this month, but official county-level results show that Janet Tweed, a member of the Delhi Village Board, has eked out a roughly 80-vote win over retired teacher and activist Mary Finneran.

Sandra Stempel Kisselback, President, Berne Historical Society