Sarah Harris’ family is about a third of the way towards their goal of raising $15,000 to pay for a seizure alert dog for Sarah, an 18-year-old Pound Ridge resident who has epilepsy.

The canine, a German shepherd named Duke,  is being trained to spot Sarah’s seizures and keep her out of danger when they occur.

Sarah said her seizures, which happen daily, cause her to lose awareness of her surroundings. She said that, as a result, she can walk into the path of cars. Sarah will be tethered to Duke by a leash that goes around her waist, and the 100 pound dog will be trained to pull her clear of traffic if she has a seizure.

I wrote a story about Sarah and her family which was published Sunday on our Web site. To view the article, visit this link — www.lohud.com.

Donations to the family’s seizure dog fundraising campaign can be sent to Sarah Harris, Seizure Dog, PO Box 422, Pound Ridge, NY 10576.

A Somers resident will be talking Wednesday about peace and how to achieve it at the town’s public library in Reis Park.

Deborah Moldow, who won the Spirit of the United Nations Award in October, indeed  has lots to say on the topic which she has spent decades thinking and talking about.

She is an interfaith minister and  a representative to the United Nations for the World Peace Prayer Society, an organization that promotes the universal prayer “May Peace Prevail on Earth.”

”(The phrase) is particularly beautiful in Japanese,” she said in a story I wrote about her award this fall. She explained that the Chinese characters used in modern Japanese writing tell  of peace and tranquility in words and pictures.

Moldow speaks at 7 p.m.  the Somers Library off Route 139/Primrose Road. Her topic is “Building a Culture of Peace.” All are welcome.

(Photo above by Joe Larese/The Journal News, Nov. 12, 2009)

I’m wondering what the community thinks about the Katonah-Lewisboro School board’s proposal that the district’s teachers take a salary freeze in order to prevent dozens of teacher layoffs in the coming school year.

My story about the freeze proposal is available at this link on our Web site — www.lohud.com.

Do you think the teachers should accept a salary freeze? Why or why not? Do you have any other thoughts you’d like to share on the issue?

Feel free to add your thoughts by clicking the “Post a Comment” link at the bottom right-hand side of this blog post.

Bedford officials recently unveiled the town’s final Climate Action Plan — an outline of recommended steps the town could take to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Among the suggestions: create bicycle-friendly zones, encourage car-pooling and require that new homes built in town meet certain energy efficiency guidelines.

To view the plan, go to this link on the Bedford town government Web site: www.bedfordny.info.

Both supporters and critics of the plan weighed in at a Feb. 2 public hearing.

The Town Board that night approved adding the climate action proposal to the town’s overall comprehensive plan, which is the community’s blueprint on how it should grow in coming years.

The town’s goal is that by 2020, Bedford will have reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from its 2004 levels.

The North Castle Land Trust has asked North Castle and Mount Kisco for permission to being planning to build trails on the newly-purchased Byram Lake Preserve. The municipalities recently acquired the land, known as the Dubos property, from a developer to preserve as open space and help protect water quality in Byram Lake. The lake is a major source of drinking water for Mount Kisco.

The Land Trust and the Armonk Rotary Club have raised just under $3,000 and lined up volunteers to begin building a trail network on the 30 acres.

North Castle gave the group permission in January to begin work. Mount Kisco has referred the question to the Conservation Advisory Council and Westchester Land Trust for comment.

Bedford is continuing its ice skating prohibition at Lake Marie in the Bedford Hills Memorial Park and at Todds Pond, located off Lakeside Drive and Cherry Street in Katonah.

Town officials cited poor ice conditions at the pond and the lake as the reason behind the skating restrictions.

There’s very thin ice along with open water and snow covered areas , according to the Bedford Recreation and Parks Department.

The lake and the pond will remain off-limits to skaters at least through the weekend.

I photographed the Section 1 gymnastics championships this afternoon at the host site at Carmel High School.

Stephanie Lombardo of Somers performs on the uneven bars during the Section One gymnastics championships at Carmel High School, Feb. 4, 2010. ( Mark Vergari / The Journal News )

Check out more online photos from LoHud.com here, and read all about it in The Journal News and LoHud.com with a story by Debbie Schechter.

Middle schoolers are talking about books in Briarcliff. Yep, that’s right—and it is the work of Briarcliff Manor Middle School Librarian Teka McCabe. Today, the middle school librarian attracted at least a dozen teens in the first-floor library and all were talking about the merits of “The Golden Compass” by Philip Pullman and “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins.

McCabe has created a “Survivor”-like competition for 14 popular fiction books modeled after the uber-popular television show that makes contestants compete against each other. In this case, the students are voting to remove books. By Feb. 12 there will be one book left on the library table, presumably the student favorite.

Photographer Seth Harrison photographed the scene this afternoon and I was there reporting for an upcoming Express story. Above, Grace Lee-Niosi, an seventh-grade student, browses the books that are being voted on in the contest. By this afternoon six books had been voted off the readers’ island.

Alie Meltser, left, and Julia Chatzky, seventh-graders, cast votes in the  contest in the school library during their lunch period. Students can vote once each period, up to nine votes per day.

For more details on the project, and the list of 14 books selected by McCabe, check-out the Northern Westchester Express on Feb. 11,

(photos by Seth Harrison/The Journal News)

Eighth-graders in Keith Grasmann’s honors Spanish class spent time today filling backpacks with school supplies for kids in Nicaragua.

The students were filling thirty backpacks with school supplies that Grasmann will personally deliver to a school in Nicaragua later in February. The eighth-graders raised $650 to buy the school supplies, which will go to elementary and middle school aged students in San Juan del Sur, a village in southern Nicaragua. Look for photos in an upcoming edition of the Northern Westchester Express. For additional photos online, click here.

At the School Board meeting on Tuesday, the Byram Hills administration will make a new, more modest, proposal for work at the district’s transportation facility. Voters defeated a referendum on Oct. 6 that would have authorized the transfer of funds from an existing account  to build a wash bay and pay for other environmental and safety improvements.

Superintendent Jacqueline Taylor said the new proposal will not include the wash bay but will address safety and environmental needs. The board will have to decide how to pay for the work, Taylor said, but it will likely also involve a transfer of funds. Using existing reserves means there will be no impact on taxes.