Editor’s Note: The following is a recap of news in the towns of New Scotland and Guilderland from the first six months of 2008. A recap of the second half of 2008 will appear next week. To view Spotlight Newspapers’ Year in Pictures Jan. to June click here: https://www.spotlightnews.com/gallery/view_all.php?category=In%20Your%20Community
January
In the first week of 2008, the Women in Business Group of the Guilderland Chamber of Commerce chose Altamont’s Community Caregivers, Inc. to be the beneficiary of several fundraising events throughout the year, including the Summer Social.
The group is a nonprofit organization founded in 1994 that provides services to people of all ages in Guilderland, Bethlehem, New Scotland, Knox and Berne.
The positioning of stop signs in town sparked some lengthy and fiery discussions at a Tuesday, Jan. 15, Guilderland Town Board meeting.
New board member Warren Redlich, a Republican, voiced concerns about the intersection of Curry Road Extension and Kings Road, where the town’s traffic safety committee had recommended the installation of a stop sign.
This might be a safety problem, Redlich said, likening the intersection to that at Veeder and Johnston roads. `There is no clear right of way at Curry and Kings roads. This could be highly dangerous. Let’s have an extensive review of this, not just slap a stop sign there.`
On Saturday, Jan. 19, a group of five Farnsworth Middle School students took home the first-place prize at the Future City regional competition at Hudson Valley Community College and earned a trip to Washington, D.C., to compete in the national finals, which were held Feb. 16-20.
Students Kathryn Liotta, Hannah Liu, Brien Miceli, Anya Joynt, and Adison Vanina, earned top honors for their design of the fictional city of `Mohala.`
The Guilderland Republican Party put a new chairman in place to help guide the party in the 2009 town elections.
Businessman Ted Danz, 60, was elected chairman of the party at its Jan. 30 meeting.
February
Acting Chief Carol Lawlor and Lt. Curtis Cox said comments made by Councilman Warren Redlich, a Republican, indicated he would deny them promotion to the chief’s position for political reasons.
The two candidates were vying for the open chief of police position in Guilderland when they served notice they may sue the town over comments posted by Redlich on Web site. Lawlor eventually got the promotion.
The fictional city of `Mohala` earned second place in the 2008 National Engineers Week Future City Competition.
Farnsworth Middle School students Kathryn Liotta, Hannah Liu, Brien Miceli, Anya Joynt, and Adison Vanina teamed up with FMS enrichment teacher Deborah Escobar and volunteer engineer mentor James Liotta, from Verizon, to prepare for national competition after winning the regional event in January.
Middle and high school students in the Guilderland Central School District performed `A Tribute to Nature’s Animals` for third-grade students in the district at the annual Young People’s Concert on Feb. 28.
High school principal Mike Paolino narrated Sergei Prokofiev’s classic tale `Peter and the Wolf,` accompanied by the wind ensemble under the direction of Kathleen Ehlinger. Keeping with the animal theme, the wind ensemble also performed Henry Mancini’s `The Pink Panther` and Leroy Anderson’s `The Waltzing Cat.` Joining the wind ensemble were several small vocal ensembles and a brass quintet.
Guilderland’s Farnsworth Middle School was the recipient of a $25,370 service-learning grant from State Farm Thursday, Feb. 28, to expand and improve the study of local biodiversity with a focus on the rare Albany Pine Bush ecosystem.
Science teachers Jennifer Ford and Alan Fiero submitted the grant application on behalf of the school, and their proposal was one of 44 chosen from among 360 grant requests received by the State Farm Youth Advisory Board from organizations throughout the United States and Canada.
March
A March 4 Guilderland Town Board meeting broke down into quarreling along partisan lines and was adjourned by Supervisor Kenneth Runion with the support of Democratic board members Patricia Slavick and Paul Pastore, and Town Clerk Rosemary Centi.
The fighting began during the approval of minutes for the Feb. 12 meeting.
Republican board member Mark Grimm contested the validity of the minutes and claimed they were not a fair and accurate representation of the meeting. He said that some of his comments were not included in the minutes and others were summarized too briefly compared to those of other members of the board.
In celebration of Music In Our Schools Month, several student ensembles from the Guilderland Central School District performed at the Empire State Plaza in Albany.
On Wednesday, March 19, high school choir members performed in the South Concourse beginning at noon. Representing Guilderland High School was the Mixed Choir and the Women’s Choir.
Farnsworth Middle School ensembles performed on Tuesday, March 25, and included the FMS Select Choir, followed by the FMS Select Band and the FMS Jazz Ensemble at noon.
April
Altamont Elementary School students performed Shakespeare’s `The Tempest,` on April 9 and 10. The performance is a tradition for fifth-grade students at the school.
Fifth-grade teacher Allan Lockwood said the students worked hard all year preparing for the performance, and New York State Theatre Institute education director Christine Saplin worked with Lockwood to give the students a lesson in theater.
Restaurant owners announced that the Italian eatery Mangia at Stuyvesant Plaza will be replaced by a new `environmentally friendly` restaurant named Creo. White Management said Creo would use a number of recycled materials to go along with its `green` identity.
In a matter of minutes, three vandals caused thousands of dollars in damage to a Guilderland business on Monday, April 14.
Owner David Schmidt arrived at Renaissance Floral Design on Western Avenue that morning to find many of the outside fixtures on the property knocked over and broken into pieces.
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli penalized Girvin and Ferlazzo, the Albany law firm that represents the Guilderland School District, when four lawyers from the firm were found to be inappropriately drawing pensions from the Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery BOCES retirement system.
The law firm is the same one that has represented the Guilderland School District on issues such as labor relations, special education, construction contracts, and sexual harassment and discrimination claims, among other legal matters.
After three years of service as the Voorheesville superintendent, Linda Langevin submitted her resignation on Wednesday, April 23, as a result of family illness.
Lily Rowen of Altamont organized the Run for Darfur 5K in Schenectady Sunday, April 27, with the proceeds benefiting the people of the war-torn country.
As part of a plan to enhance the character and quality of life in Altamont, the village applied for and received a grant to develop a master walking and bicycling path.
Mayor James Gaughan said the $27,000 grant was a testament to the village’s comprehensive plan, created in 2006.
At its Tuesday, April 29, meeting, the Guilderland Board of Education unanimously approved the appointment of two new elementary principals: Allan Lockwood, to the position of Guilderland Elementary School principal and Christopher Sanita, to the position of Pine Bush Elementary School principal.
May
The New Scotland Town Board passed a six-month commercial building moratorium after listening to residents’ concerns at a Wednesday, May 7, public hearing in the Voorheesville high school.
More than 750 residents from New Scotland, New Salem and Voorheesville filled the auditorium, and for more than three hours, the residents staked their claim against the Syracuse-based Sphere Development Group’s plan to construct a 750,000-square-foot retail development off routes 85 and 85A, on land that was once home to the Bender melon farm.
That moratorium was later extended for an additional three months and is still in place today.
On Tuesday, May 20, Guilderland Central School District residents approved an $83,823,160 budget for the 2008-2009 school year, with a tally of 2,067 votes for and 1,087 against. The budget represented a 2.08 percent increase in spending over the current year’s budget and resulted in an estimated 1.43 percent tax rate increase for residents in the Town of Guilderland.
Voters also elected Catherine Barber, Judy Slack and John Dornbush ` with 1,905; 1,774; and 1,767 votes, respectively ` to three-year terms on the Board of Education. Voters also approved a proposition to purchase 10 new school buses.
Representatives of the Guilderland Chamber of Commerce helped officially open the nation’s largest Wal-Mart on Wednesday, May 21, at Crossgates Commons.
At its meeting on Tuesday, May 27, the Guilderland Board of Education unanimously approved the appointment of Demian Singleton to the position of assistant superintendent for instruction. Singleton succeeded Nancy Andress, who retired from the district in August.
Singleton has been with the Guilderland Central School District since 1996, serving most recently as the instructional supervisor for mathematics and science at Farnsworth Middle School.
June
The Guilderland Town Board voted along party lines to name Carol Lawlor the town’s new police chief to a standing-room crowd that filled Town Hall Tuesday, June 2. Three days later, she took the oath to officially become chief.
A 29-year veteran who was the town’s deputy chief, Lawlor had the support of the roaring crowd as the final vote of 3 to 2 secured her place as New York’s 10th female police chief.
Radon testing was conducted at Guilderland High School as part of a routine air-quality check in accordance with the Guilderland Central School District’s health and safety program. Results of that assessment showed some limited areas of Guilderland High School tested above the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommended action guidelines for radon. These areas included the media office, auditorium, east-gym, wrestling room, coaches’ room and a few science classrooms.
Visitors to the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C., saw history come alive when Joan Harrison of Colonie and Rachel Lee of Voorheesville presented an exhibit Wednesday, June 18.
Those two history scholars from Christ the King School in Guilderland presented their work reflecting this year’s National History Day theme `Conflict and Compromise.`
Legislators, residents and county officials discussed a two-year construction project that would bring a roundabout to the intersection of Fuller Road and the Washington Avenue Extension.
The public information meeting held June 26 focused on two separate plans to improve traffic conditions. The first plan is the potential construction of the roundabout at the intersection. The second plan is a `corridor project` that would extend from Western Avenue to Central Avenue. “