This weekend, the Hilltowns and surrounding areas will host various events and activities, from exhibits on prohibition to an eight-mile run.

With counties across New York State working to submit a plan to save money through shared municipal services by Aug. 1, some town governments have been trying to keep up —  wary of consolidation, anxious to save taxpayers money, or simply reeling from the fast pace.

At his State of the County address on Monday night, Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy brought up new initiatives such as expanding internet access in the Hilltowns and efforts to finish paving the Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail.

A survey of farmers in the Helderberg Hilltowns will be conducted by the Hill and Mountain Farming Project at the Carey Institute in Rensselaerville over the course of this month.

A former resort and relic of the 1940s and ’50s has been bought with the intention to restore it and possibly rent it to local businesses in the town of Westerlo.

Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple has a vision of bringing support services closer to the rural Hilltowns, housing them in the former Clarksville Elementary School at the base of the Helderbergs. 

Tara Murphy, Knox Town Clerk

Government programs, spending millions in taxpayer money, to kill coyotes is worse than pointless because the attempts at eradication have instead led to proliferation.

Coyotes are in our midst . The state conservation department says, even if they have been silent in Knox this summer, they are generalists and cannot be decimated. A local farmer says, “The coyote is an opportunist.”

It would be purpose-built to supply power to the SUNY Polytechnic Institute campus in Guilderland and Albany.