Guilderland

Sarecha has enlisted two of his Hindu friends to help him gather signatures for a petition to recognize Diwali as an academic holiday, a day off from school so they can pray and celebrate with their families.

Rich Straut, the village’s engineer, said Altamont has for the last year been exploring the treatability of the manganese at the Brandle Road wells.

“We have a high level of [residents] below the poverty line in this district …,” said Meredith Brière. “We have a high number of renters and we have to remember, when giving exemptions, those tax implications end up on the entire population including renters because rents will go up.” Bringing the ceiling up to $50,000, she said, “just seemed really high” while at the same time $29,000 “is really a difficult number to live on.” She went on, “So we came to a compromise of $35,000.”

“The historical anomaly here is the health-insurance increase,” said AndrewVan Alstyne. “We’re projecting a $2.2 million increase in health insurance. That is unusually large.”

The goal is to announce the new superintendent by July 1.