Gottmann Checks In

 Kristan Gottmann, founder of the Malta Helps Facebook page, and the town's new director of parks and recreation, was our speaker last Thursday. She said activities are gearing up, including summer children's programs, as Covid concerns ebb. 

There are plenty of activities for adults, too, from yoga to pickleball, and including a 7 p.m. July 14 book talk and signing at the Malta Community Center by Steve Williams, author of "Off the Northway" to be published by the Saratoga County History Center.

The food pantry at the Community Center serves more than 100 families, Gottmann said, and will be getting fresh vegetables twice a month from the Pitney Meadows farm in Saratoga Springs.

In other food-related news, our club has a pancake breakfast scheduled for this Sunday June 5 at the Round Lake Fire House.

Education, Mentoring and Camp Work

 

Retired Scotia-Glenville educator Jeff Kimble was our speaker on Thursday. He managed the credit recovery program there, and said the Covid pandemic has intensified and spread the "toxic stress" levels which many students experience at home and bring with them to school. But that can be offset, he said, by a student connecting with a stable caring adult mentor.

On Saturday, six of our members -- Kristen Stanley, Miles Cornthwaite, Helen Endres, Larry Levine, Bob and Barbara Conner, worked on cleaning up cabins and brush at Pine Grove camp on the west side of Saratoga Springs, where the families of race track workers will be spending the summer.

Assemblywoman reports

 Assemblywoman and club member Carrie Woerner was our speaker on Thursday, noting passage of the $221 billion state budget.

Unlike state senators and members of Congress, she knows what the lines of her new Assembly district will look like (and it still includes Malta). State courts have ruled the new Senate and congressional lines were enacted in a partisan manner in violation of the state constitution, so the shape of those districts remains up in the air. The Assembly lines held up, Carrie said, because that chamber's Democratic majority consulted with Republicans in drawing up the new districts.

 She discussed other matters more or less controversial, ending with a pitch for her New York Textile Act.

Supervisor Speaks

 Malta Supervisor Mark Hammond was our speaker on Thursday. (He hasn't turned Canadian. Someone put up that flag next to the larger US one as a tip of the hat to our Canadian member Kristen Stanley.)

One of his top priorities, the still fairly new town supervisor said, is addressing the intersection of Routes 67 and East Line Road on the border of Ballston, where the town hopes the state and federal governments will allocate funds to build a roundabout.

Hammond said the New York State Police barracks in town will soon be moving to a nearby building to be constructed on Dunning Street.

The supervisor also discussed a proposed development on Route 9P by Saratoga Lake, and another on East Line Road that would preserve part of the Mitchell farm.