The best source for local news from Marbletown, Rochester & Rosendale
Published the 1st and 3rd Friday of each month | Vol. 26, Issue 21
November 5, 2021 | 75 cents
Fire departments consider changes Independent study reveals findings on Marbletown fire and ambulance Brooke Stelzer BSP Reporter The Marbletown Town Board meeting was held in person and streamed on Facebook Live on Oct. 19. Five board members were present, both in person and virtually, including Rich Parete, chairman and town supervisor, along with board members
Eric Stewart, Daisy Foote, Don LaFera and Tim Hunt. There were six resolutions on the agenda, and they all carried, 5-0. The meeting opened with a motion to open a public hearing to override the tax cap limit in 2022. The motion passed, 5-0. There were no speakers regarding the public hearing. The motion to close the public hearing passed, 5-0.
The meeting continued with a presentation from Paul Bishop and David Riley from the Center for Governmental Research, a public policy research firm based in the city of Rochester, in Western New York. Bishop presented findings of an emergency services study of six of seven of Marbletown’s EMS departments: Cottekill,
High Falls, Lomontville, Marbletown, Stone Ridge and Vly-Atwood. The department in Kripplebush chose not to participate in the study. The study was funded by a Marbletown grant and started in March of 2021. The study was completed in early October.
See Fire, page 6
Proud voters. Barbara Seaman, web
manager, at Stone Ridge Library, and Sarah Robertson, program manager Stone Ridge Library, both voted this past Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 2. “I voted first thing this morning, and am really grateful for all the poll workers,” said Seaman, who voted at the High Falls Fire Station. “I love voting. It makes me feel like I am doing my part for the community,” said Robertson, who cast her vote at Stone Ridge Fire Station. “I’m also glad all the candidates’ flyers and letters and texts will stop.” And she is likely not alone in that line of thinking. Thanks to all who got out and voted. See the Election Day wrap-up with all the ballot numbers and reactions on pages 4 and 9 in this issue.
The oldest man to run in Sunday's NYC Marathon lives here! Page 2
Hope on the horizon? Possible new treatment for Lyme disease Special Rochester election planned for Dec. 7 Page 4
There's still live music in town Page 21
Chelsea Miller BSP Reporter Kim Lewis of Northeastern University has announced confidently via New Scientist that “Lyme disease is well-positioned to be eradicated.” Wait. Stop. The. Presses. For those of us who live in fear of ticks during the warmer months (and even in the warmer days of winter) or may be struggling with Lyme disease, the news heralded by Lewis offers the possibility for country life to change as we know it. Lewis has discovered an application for the chemical hygromycin A that is deadly to the bacterium that causes Lyme disease but harmless to animals and could potentially wipe out the disease. As a refresher, Lyme disease is caused by the corkscrew-shaped bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, which is delivered via the bite of infected blacklegged ticks. Compounding the issue, lab tests for Lyme are notoriously misleading, resulting in many people not getting diagnosed properly in the critical early stages on the infection. And while antibiotics can treat Lyme disease if caught
Kim Lewis, Northeastern University Distinguished Professor, Biology
early enough, there is significant debate – and very little that insurance will cover – in the best treatment for chronic or acute Lyme. Additionally, repeated use of antibiotics wreaks havoc on the gut microbiome and potentially leads to antibiotic resistance down the road. While Lewis is not the first to discover the potential value of hygromycin (it was studied in the 1980s as a treatment to for a swine-specific disease,
but abandoned), he and his team are the first to consider the chemical as a potential cure for Lyme disease. It was Lewis and his team, however, who first found the connection with spirochete bacteria (such as B. burgdorferi). In initial animal tests Lewis says that the findings were “unusually safe” and no harmful effects were observed no matter how high the dose. Furthermore, Lewis says that it is much more difficult and unlikely for B. burgdorferi to develop a resistance to hygromycin as “the chemical resembles essential nutrients that spirochetes cannot make themselves and take up using a specific transporter, so mutations that block the take-up of hygromycin would also deprive spirochetes of these nutrients.” (The New Scientist) It is possible that baits laced with hygromycin could be dropped in the wild to clear up B. burgdorferi infections in local mice populations, potentially reducing – or eliminating – infected tick populations for entire areas. To this end, Lewis is preparing for an anticipated field trial in the summer of 2022.