_{Ed Rosen, Delmar}

Flooding from a collapsed beaver’s dam closed Route 443 near Route 85 on Wednesday, but public safety and public works teams cleared the road soon after.

Police knocked on doors in the Rensselaerville hamlet last month after a councilman called and complained about cars parked on the street. The response from residents was called a "small uproar" by the sheriff.

Kenneth Weaver, who resigned from the post in September, confronted the town's supervisor publicly because his health insurance had been canceled, but the supervisor pointed to a provision in the employee handbook making Weaver ineligible after 2013.

Edward Hampton, a highway worker, is now filling in after the highway superintendent stepped down. Local party committees say Hampton and Randy Bashwinger will be on the ballot in the November election.

Highway superintendents and their town boards across the state have to agree to what road projects will be done every year. Berne Supervisor Kevin Crosier says the highway superintendent's late list is too costly and can't be approved.

The proposed abandonment would start a quarter-mile from the road's intersection with County Route 353 in Rensselaerville and maintain the public easement.

ITHACA, N.Y. — The longtime educational program known as the Highway School, which Cornell University had labeled a low priority and had threatened to shut down last summer, has been re-imagined and is expected to continue thanks to statewide support, according to the director of the program.

The state’s Department of Transportation is repairing pavement this month on Route 85 and Route 9W in Albany County.

Work on Route 85 began on Tuesday, Sept. 10, at the Berne-Westerlo town line and runs seven miles east to the intersection of Route 85 and Route 157 in the town of New Scotland.

Work will not occur from Aug. 12 to 16 to accommodate visitors to the Altamont Fair. For up-to-date travel information, call 511 or visit www.511NY.org.