Local News

Photos: Steeple comes down
- 09/03/2010
RENSSELAERVILLE -- Workers removed the Rensselaerville Presbyterian Church spire on Friday for repairs. The steeple came down about 1:05 p.m.

Photos: Hannah thanks UAlbany
- 09/02/2010
ALBANY -- The family of Hannah Sames, 6, went to the University at Albany on Thursday to thank the campus community for helping "Hannah's Hope" win a $250,000 Pepsi Refresh Grant. UAlbany encouraged its community to vote online for Hannah's Hope, which would fund research into giant axonal neuropathy. Hannah suffers from the rare disorder.

Their Saratoga race is of another sort
- 09/02/2010
A reminder of the dangers inherent to horse racing is never far away when the horses are running at the Saratoga Race Course. A crew of two ride in the van, paramedics who also rotate through other emergency responder jobs at the track, including first aid. The men watch the post parade through binoculars and then position the ambulance about four car lengths behind the starting gate. Jumpy, nervous horses pulling and straining against the jockey and the outrider might be the ones who throw the jockey or rear up in the gate and crush the rider and assistant starter. Others were also hospitalized, including an exercise rider thrown when the horse he was riding was startled by a loud noise; and a jockey who was kicked in the stomach in the paddock. While the paramedics are there to pick riders off the track, Michelle Banghart is the one who guides jockeys through the medical system. Banghart carries a signed picture of the jockey tucked into a plastic sleeve, next to her track ID.

We'll spend a holiday free of storm
- 09/02/2010
The storm, still packing 125-mile-per-hour winds despite a downgrade Thursday to a Category 2, is expected to slide along the coast Friday and Saturday, but the storm's path appears far enough to the east to ensure blue skies in the Capital Region. "Instead of leaving Friday, when the storm may be affecting the area the most, many may wait to leave for the holiday on Saturday morning," said Nancy Shanley, local marketing and public relations manager for AAA. Shanley said AAA research shows that 4.8 million people will hit the road for the holiday in the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania region and the average trip most Americans will make this weekend will 635 miles, slightly less than last year's figure of 645 miles. According to a press release from the airport, up to 50 commercial and private aircraft are expected to arrive on Friday to ride out the storm. Vacationers along the East Coast will feel the hurricane's effects, with popular destinations like Cape Cod, Nantucket and coastal Connecticut expected to be hit.

Pension fund drop = tax rise
- 09/02/2010
Mandatory pension contributions for the state as well as municipalities -- including cities, towns and counties -- will jump 37 percent within two years thanks to a drop in the value of the recession-battered pension fund, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Thursday. For police and firefighters, who are in a different, more generous pension system, the contribution will go from 18.2 percent of payroll to 21.6 percent. The mandatory increase will put the squeeze on many towns and counties, which are already groaning under rising health care costs for employees, flat sales tax revenues and decreases in state aid. Against that backdrop, though, the amounts that local governments have had to pay toward retirement costs, have gone up and down, depending on how much revenue the pension fund was generating in a given period. Wilson, a hedge fund manager who was involved in restructuring General Motors during the automaker's government bailout, released a 52-page report on the pension system in which he predicts a looming "catastrophe" of rising costs and falling revenues. Wilson believes the assumption that the fund will generate a 7.5 percent return is overly optimistic, and he believes that new public employees going forward should have to accept a less-generous retirement package, with a possible mix of pension and individually funded 401Ks, similar to the private sector.

1 dead, 1 injured when tree falls on car
- 09/02/2010
According to State Police, C.A. Dalessandro of Saratoga Springs was driving a 1999 BMW convertible about 8:10 p.m. near a wooded area when a tree on the south side of the road fell and hit the car. Preliminary findings of an accident reconstruction investigation show the tree that hit the car was not among those closest to the road, and that it had fallen through a narrow gap in the woods to strike the car.

Funds will aid Spa fire crew
- 09/02/2010
The Saratoga Springs Fire Department can bring back or replace seven firefighters who were laid off in January thanks to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security grant announced at the Saratoga Springs Fire Department on Lake Avenue. The funds will allow members to conduct more required fire inspections, which have been cut back substantially since the firefighters lost their jobs to budget cuts in January, Fire Chief Robert Williams said. The city applied for the competitive funds, which came through the Department of Homeland Security's SAFER program and was announced by U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, U.S. Rep. Scott Murphy, D-Glens Falls, and other public officials.

Fruitless search for remains of Jaliek Rainwalker
- 09/02/2010

State Police divers explored a treacherous section of the Batten Kill on Thursday to search for the remains of Jaliek Rainwalker, the boy who disappeared in November 2007 from Greenwich. State Police Public Information Officer Maureen Tuffey said the divers did not find anything at the site other than some old metal.