NEW SCOTLAND — The 27th Voorheesville Community Christmas Festival will be held on Sunday, Dec. 18, at 7 p.m.

The event is held at the First United Methodist Church of Voorheesville at 68 Maple Ave.

With Voorheesville Area Ambulance Service seeking to merge with Delmar-Bethlehem EMS or face dissolution, a question still remains on what will happen to its former headquarters.

The Length of Service Award Program, or LOSAP, was voted, 54 to 2, to be discontinued for Voorheesville Area Ambulance Service members. VAAS stopped functioning on Oct. 15, and the vote allows members to stop paying fees for a service they no longer have.

Residents of the village may vote Tuesday, Nov. 15, on discontinuing the Length Of Service Award program, known as LOSAP, for members of the Voorheesville Area Ambulance Service. The LOSAP program provides pensions for volunteers.

Gertrude Smith will celebrate her 88th birthday in the place she considers her second home — Smith’s Tavern. She and her husband ran the Voorheesville eatery for decades.

A lack of volunteers had led Voorheesville's ambulance to announce its closure, but members continue to respond as a secondary service, and the organization is seeking a way to keep running.

Stewart’s Shops, which had inspired controversy in two neighboring villages, is now doing an upgrade in its Altamont store, having been turned down on an expansion plan there.

In closing off valves to isolate the break, “that shakes up the system,” said Brett Hotaling, the village's superintendent of Public Works.