Week in Review: School, Nonprofit News Tops the Week's Headlines

A clause in the Three Village school district's most recent contract with its teachers union has yielded a savings of $300,000 – which the district will be reinvesting in some staff and programs that initially fell victim to budget cuts, administrators announced Monday.

The Three Village Board of Education on Monday elected Dr. Jeffrey Kerman as its new school board president. Kerman succeeds , who served as president the past two years but chose not to seek re-election to the board when his term expired this year. Jonathan Kornreich, who has served on the Board of Education since 2008, was re-elected as board vice president.

Over the years, Erica Kutzing has fostered animals in need, taking litters of kittens and puppies into her home to care for and bottle-feed the orphans. Combined, she has fostered and placed over 250 animals in loving homes. She rescued her one-year-old blind pitbull named Tye at just two weeks old, she has a six-year-old Pomeranian named Talulah, a tailless cat by the name of Bunny, and an eight-week-old blind kitten named Colette. Now, she has a new mission at Save-A-Pet. Just this week, Save-A-Pet announced that Kutzing is its new Director of Operations.

Grants awarded to the Town of Brookhaven and will facilitate removal of throughout the West Meadow Peninsula, the WMHO announced this week. According to the WMHO, it's the first known invasion of perennial pepperweed, a non-native plant, on Long Island; it is classified as an Early Detection/Rapid Response species that threatens the peninsula's salt marsh ecosystem

New York State on Tuesday paid St. James-based Gyrodyne Co. of America a $167.5 million settlement as the completion of the company's lawsuit against the state for undervaluing the land it annexed via eminent domain, according to a report published Thursday in Long Island Business News. In 2005, the state condemned about 245.5 acres of Gyrodyne's land at its Flowerfield site, paying the company $26.3 million. In 2006, Gyrodyne filed suit. State courts ruled in favor of Gyrodyne and later denied the state's request for an appeal. According to LIBN, the award includes $98.68 million in damages, $1.47 million for expenses, disbursements, and costs, and $67.34 million in interest.

Few storefronts in the Stony Brook Village Center ever stay vacant for very long, and now, its newest addition is also a familiar one. is expanding its business to open The Spa at Legends in the space formerly occupied by Blue Dove Spa and, more recently, Age of New Beginnings Spa.