GUILDERLAND — Allan V. Kotmel, a long-time Guilderland School Board member who worked for the state Teachers’ Retirement System, died peacefully on Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019, after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 76.

Tod Mell’s petite accuser says she never spoke to Mell about the abuse, which she says occurred “30 or 40 times” over the course of her fifth-grade year, in 2010 to 2011, always behind his desk, below the eye level of other students. She also never told school officials, her parents, or friends about it until the spring of 2018.

Two seats on the Altamont Board of Trustees are up for grabs in March. Incumbents Nicholas Fahrenkopf and Michelle Ganance both say they will run.

GUILDERLAND — A public uproar four years ago at the suggestion of closing one of the district’s five elementary schools because of declining enrollment led instead to filling empty classrooms with a private pre-kindergarten program. Now the district needs those classrooms back as enrollment is increasing.

Donlon had been living in Guilderland’s Carpenter Village Apartments since last April, under his own name and date of birth, until his arrest on Jan. 16.

At his arrest on Jan. 16 at Guilderland’s Carpenter Village Apartments, the court heard, numerous law-enforcement officials with guns drawn pulled Raymond Donlon from his vehicle to the entryway of his building and said they wanted to search his apartment.