July
• A new Albany County law goes into effect requiring more than 1,300 restaurants in the county to post health inspection reports in plain view under a Food Service Establishment Rating System. Spearheaded by County Legislator Chris Higgins, the amendment to the Albany County Sanitary Code is an effort to squeeze out the best service from area restaurants while educating the public.
• Construction on the Congress Street Bridge that links Troy and Watervliet begins and is just one of the 11 of 17,000 bridges in New York state that will get a major makeover through 2013 after Gov. Andrew Cumo’s NY Works program distributed $19.9 million for construction.
• The Schoharie Library lost more than 5,000 books in post-Tropical Storm Irene flooding, and the staff at the William K. Sanford Library in Colonie holds a daylong read-a-thon. The family event helps raise money and gather books for the Schoharie Library.
• The Albany Aqua Ducks has its final tour after nine years of touring seven days a week, 24 hours a day. The three amphibious vehicles are sold to an out-of-state company.
• Incoming Siena College sophomore Mia Bango is presented with the Ruth Walsh Smith Scholarship, a $2,000 award from the Northeastern Association of the Blind at Albany. The scholarship is presented to a legally blind woman who is pursing higher education or career training.
• The World of Dance studio in Colonie is ranked No. 1 in New York and No. 6 in the nation by the Federation of Dance Competitions, and on July 22, it receives the FDC Studio of Excellence award of 2012 at the StarQuest National dance completion in Virginia Beach, Va.
• The Colonie Town Board calls for a zoning change for the Loudon House, a long-stalled condominium project that has been sitting dormant for three years. The board changes the zoning from a planned development district to single family residential, which forces the developer, BCI Construction, to finish the project within an 18-month timeline. In December BCI files a lawsuit against the town to dispute the rezoning.
• Christine Quinn makes Albany County history when she serves her first day as the new deputy county executive. Appointed by County Executive Dan McCoy after then-deputy county executive Michael Perrin stepped down, Quinn is the first woman to hold the position.
• Eleven-year-old Ashton Jojo, a student at Southgate Elementary School, dies suddenly on Wednesday, June 27, in Florida after being electrocuted while reaching into a pool of water on a miniature golf course to retrieve a lost ball. Jojo’s bowling coach Jake Rivers hosts a bowl-a-thon fundraiser at Spare Time in Latham, and all of the proceeds go to the Jojo family.
• Latham native and student at Wheaton College in Illinois Alyssa Paulsen, 20, wins first place at the Miss USA Ambassador Pageant in Tampa, Fla.
August
• Trader Joe’s opens its doors to Capital District customers on Wolf Road in Colonie. The grocery story is one of 360 in 31 states, and arrives in the area after years of pleas from a group of residents.
• The third Honor Our Vets Car Show is held in the front parking lot of the Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany. Classic cars, muscle cars, tuners, race cars, funny cars, imports, exotics, antiques, military, fire and police vehicles lined the parking spaces. The price to enter a car, which was then eligible to receive an award via a panel of judges, benefited the hospital’s voluntary service department.
• Construction begins on a larger Honest Weight Food Co-op on Watervliet Avenue in the City of Albany. Plans call for the new facility to be nearly double the size of the existing 16,000-square-foot store on Central Avenue.
• Five companies are held responsible for the cleanup of the former Mercury Refining superfund site, an old mercury reclamation facility in the towns of Colonie and Guilderland. The Gillette Company, KeySpan Gas East Corporation, Energizer Battery Manufacturing, Union Carbide Corporation and Spectrum Brands need to address the soil, sediment and groundwater contaminated with mercury.
September
• As the 11th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, Colonie seniors honor the community’s first responders firsthand at the annual “Remembering Those Who Keep Us Safe” event.
• The Friends of the Pruyn House celebrate the 29th annual “Old Fashioned Sunday,” to honor the history of Colonie with music demonstrations and crafts, from blacksmithing to basket weaving.
• Joe’s Crab Shack at 579 Troy-Schenectady Road in Latham, where the former Dakota Steakhouse once stood, opens to the public, with hundreds of customers lining up the night before for its grand opening. The Houston, Texas-based chain is the fourth location to open in New York state.
• The Albany County Legislature passes an extension of the county’s 6 percent hotel occupancy tax. Part of the occupancy tax sends about $1 million per year toward the $220 million Albany County Convention Center project.
• Albany’s Ronald McDonald House celebrates its 30th anniversary by announcing its expansion next door to its 139 South Lake Ave. home. After renovations, the new addition will add a third home to the facility and nine extra bedrooms.
• David Soares secures another term as Albany County district attorney after beating his Democratic primary challenger Lee Kindlon. Soares, who has no general election challenger, wins by a margin of 14,498 votes to 10,132 votes.
• Portofino’s Italian Restaurant at 831 New Loudon Road in Latham opens with new owners. The owners got their start in the food business 39 years ago as Home Style Pizza on upper Union Street in Schenectady.
• Siena College partners with the Capital District Transportation Authority, allowing Siena College students to ride free and environmentally-friendly busses around the Capital District. Siena is the seventh school in the area to join a partnership with CDTA.
• Sand Creek Animal Hospital hold a grand opening for its new location now at 130 Wolf Road. The 8,600-square-foot facility is filled with upgraded equipment, exam rooms, offices and a full pharmacy.
October
• Twenty-seven-year-old Alison Horton begins a 10-month trip to Bangladesh as one of the 17 nationwide recipients of a brand new Fulbright Scholarship called the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship.
• Price Chopper Supermarkets announces its plan to build a new concept store on the Latham Super Center on Route 9 that will feature fresh, made-to-order food services along with major renovations, a project that will add 10,000 square feet to the store’s existing 80,000-square-foot footprint.
• The Colonie Chamber of Commerce holds its biannual Taste of Colonie Restaurant Week. Throughout the week, customers can go to any of the 14 participating restaurants and receive a three-course meal for $20.12.
• The development team for the Shoppes at Latham Circle speaks to the Colonie Planning Board, announcing they are looking for seven to 12 new tenants for a complete renovation of the mall to be completed in the fall of 2013.
• The Albany Pine Bush Discovery Center, located on 3,200 acres of the Pine Bush Preserve at 195 New Karner Road in Albany, adds Mondays to its schedule, making it open daily, year-round. The facility has a state-of-the-art interpretive center that was designed to teach visitors about the rare ecosystem.
• Dave’s Pizza and Burger is opened at 53 Fuller Road in Colonie by the owner of Burger Centric on Delaware Avenue in Albany. The restaurant serves exotic meats on burgers and pizza, including lion, llama, kangaroo and crocodile. Weeks after opening, the choice to serve lion meat has upset some nationwide animals rights groups.
• University at Albany Professor Aiguo Dai, associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, receives the fifth award of the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water for his research on climate change conducted outside the classroom.
• 110th Assembly District candidates Republican Jennifer Whalen and Democrat Phil Steck debate prior to Election Day, often discussing their views on the Assemblyman Vito Lopez scandal. Whalen had refused to show up to the first scheduled debate since primary season.
November
• The William K. Sanford Town Library holds a spelling bee to raise money to reupholster its more than 30-year-old chairs, or buy new ones.
• Democrats David Rowley and Brian Haak beat out Republicans Joe Gomez and David Green for seats on the Colonie Town Board on Election Day. Democrat Phil Steck also wins a decisive victory over Republican opponent Jennifer Whalen in the 110th Assembly District race.
• A lack of comment or questions from the public precedes the early adoption of the Town of Colonie’s 2013 budget. The $82 million budget is a 0.66 percent increase over 2012’s spending plan, with an overall tax rate increase of 12 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.
• Demolition begins on the Starlite Theatre on Route 9R in Latham. The once-popular entertainment venue that featured stars like Johnny Cash and Diana Ross has been sitting vacant for almost 15 years. Developers the Galesi Group will convert it into a mixed-used development.
• Author Molly Guptill Manning, originally from Latham, releases her first book, “The Myth of Ephraim Tutt, Arthur Train and his Great Literary Hoax.” The book explores the controversial story of Tutt, a fictional attorney from a popular 1920s book series by Train.
• Town of Colonie Historian Kevin Franklin receives the front door to the historic Schuyler Flatts home in Menands, which was abandoned and burnt to the ground in the 1960s. The door was recovered before the fire, and Franklin hopes to display the door at Town Hall.
• For the fourth year in a row, Tully Rinckey PLLC spends a morning handing out free turkeys to veterans and service members for their “Turkeys for Veterans” program at 441 New Karner Road in Albany. For the first time, Hannaford Supermarkets teams up with the law firm, donating 120 15-pound turkeys.
December
• The Albany County Legislature approves a budget plan that overrides the state tax cap for the second year in a row.
• The Colonie Pop Warner Pee Wee Cheerleading Team snags first place in their division at the National Cheer and Dance Competition held at the ESPN Wild World of Sports Complex in Disney World, Fla.
• The Town of Colonie approves a resolution to continue to accept storm-related debris from Downstate New York at the town landfill until Jan. 15. The town began accepting the debris the week before Thanksgiving and as of Friday, Dec. 7, had already taken in 16,000 tons of waste. Waste Connections, the private company that operates the landfill, agrees to pay the town $4 for each ton of debris dumped at the landfill.
• After its website is compromised twice in the span of a month, the Town of Colonie decides to rebuild the entire site on a different server. The cause of the compromises remains unclear.
• For the second time, Albany County Executive Dan McCoy vetoes the long-argued Local Law G, which would require electronic reporting to law enforcement of transactions through precious metal exchange dealers and secondhand dealers in Albany County.
• Despite earlier posturing, Albany County Executive Dan McCoy chooses not to veto the 2013 budget passed by the County Legislatur. He instead urges lawmakers to work with him on a plan to privatize the Albany County Nursing Home. The budget funds the nursing home for the rest of the year, but McCoy hopes that privatizing with Upstate Services Group will save taxpayers more than $60 million over 10 years.
• The Colonie Planning Board approves final site plan for the Shoppes at Latham Circle, a project that will revitalize the rundown Latham Circle Mall. The developers still have not announced who the new tenants are.