All Over Albany

State says its health exchange website is running smoothly, Oprah makes quick visit to Saratoga, a 40-year incumbent, more surveillance cameras for Schenectady, driving the stars

Despite problems at the federal level, New York State's website for its health exchange is now apparently running smoothly after an initial rush and its executive director says 150,000 people have already registered. [NYT] [TU]

"Sources close to the negotiations" tell the Times Union that the state Department of Environmental Conservation and local municipalities along the Hudson River are close to an agreement on plan to address the long running problem of combined sewer overflows -- when storm water causes raw sewage to be dumped into the Hudson. Presumably this is the same plan mentioned in the Business Review last month -- which, at the time, was reported to include a $131 million bond to be taken out by six municipalities, including Albany and Troy (and paid for by higher sewer rates). [TU] [AOA 2011] [Biz Review]

A former orthodontist from Columbia who tried to claim he was a "sovereign citizen" and thus not subject to the laws of the United States was convicted on a host of charges, including tax evasions -- as he watched from a jail cell. [TU]

Oprah was in Saratoga Springs Monday for dinner with two graduates of her academy in South Africa who are now attending Skidmore. The owners of the Crown Grill say Oprah's visit was focused on the young women. [Saratogian] [YNN]

Takeaway from latest Siena poll: New Yorkers don't really know what the Moreland Commission is, but if it's investigating corruption, then OK. [TU]

Up for consideration: Whether the state should offer a Spanish Language Arts Exam to assess students whose first language isn't English. [TU]

Choice facing Republican state Assemblyman Peter Lopez, thought to be a strong potential challenger to Cecilia Tkaczyk in the 46th state Senate district: Whether to move from his home in village of Schoharie in the next few weeks in order to establish residency in the district in time for next year's election. [TU]

Topics discussed at Monday's six-candidate Albany mayoral candidate forum: diversity and young people. [WNYT]

Knox has had he same supervisor for 40 years -- and he's up for re-election in November. [TU]

The Schenectady County DA's office says a 19-year-old Schenectady man pleaded guilty to shooting a man five times during a robbery February in an apartment in the Stockade. Prosecutors say the teen had gone to the apartment under the guise of trying to buy an iPad, but had planned on stealing it. [TU] [Daily Gazette]

An eighth person has been charged in the Holloway house party case. [WNYT]

Headlines for a story about the suicide of Schalmont student over the weekend: "Bullying studied as cause for teen's death", "Bullying not thought to be cause of boy's suicide". (The articles basically report the same thing.) [TU] [Daily Gazette]

GE is arguing that facilities it owns in Fort Edward for the Hudson River PCB dredging project are drastically overassessed for tax purposes -- that the property is worth hundreds of thousands instead of millions. [Post-Star]

The Saratoga County Industrial Development Agency is looking at incentives that might attract new tenants to the Luther Forest Technology Campus, which hasn't gotten a new tenant since GlobalFoundries. [Daily Gazette]]

Applications to Troy's IDA, and Monday's meeting of the org, included details on a handful of new residential projects in the city, including conversions planned for 80 and 75 units. [Troy Record]

Schenectady has 120 city surveillance cameras and 20 more on the way. [WNYT]

Schenectady mayor Gary McCarthy says the plan for the city's new pay-and-display parking meters is for them to use the same rates as the meters they're replacing -- and later on usage data will help determine rates. [Daily Gazette]

Perk that Saratoga Springs mayor Scott Johnson has proposed ending: free healthcare for life for city council members who stay in office for 10 consecutive years. [Saratogian]

A plan floated for a new Cohoes downtown park could include the demolition of 20 houses. [Troy Record]

The Berne-Knox-Westerlo boys basketball team showed up at the district's school board meeting Monday to ask why their coach of 10 years had been fired with no explanation. [News10]

The invasive Emerald Ash Borer beetle has been spotted in Schoharie County. [Daily Gazette]

A recommendation from high school friend Pat Riley -- the basketball coach -- got a guy from Schenectady a job driving around movie stars such as Tom Hanks, a job he's done for last quarter century. [Marv Cermak]