It’s hard to say goodbye to January when you consider how nice it was to Long Valley. We accumulated about four inches of snow during the month, but, more intriguing is the fact that temperatures were far warmer than usual for this time of year.

So, goodbye January, and hello February. We hope you treat us kindly.

Here’s a recap of some of the top stories from the past week.

The week kicked off with some confusing information from a situation that unfolded over the weekend. Last Saturday, 911 communications to the police department was cut due to an outage by phone service provider CenturyLink. What resulted was back-to-back Reverse 911 calls alerting the public, but confused some. To understand more about what happened, read this.

The Long Valley Junior Women’s Club hosted its 10th Annual Spelling Bee for fourth and fifth graders in the township, and the winning word was a healthy one. There were 65 students participating for top honors. See more here.

The West Morris Regional Board of Education held its regular meeting on Monday night, and made a decision on whether or not to move its election from April to November. Read about what they did here. At that same meeting, the board discussed the possibility of having its meetings taped and broadcast based on residents’ donations. The board also said it’s something that would be considered during the budget planning process. Find out more here.

Long Valley Patch caught up with 1637 Lacrosse, a new organization in town providing clinics and training for athletes looking to further their lacrosse skills. The company, founded by residents Tom Forbes and Doug Moore, has core philosophies it hopes to share with its students about the game. Find out more by reading this.

The staff of the West Morris Central Paw Print newspaper published its second edition this week, and gave Long Valley Patch a copy to share with our readers. Check out the breadth of topics covered by the staff and quality of reporting by the high school students by going here.

Did you have a chance to answer our question of the week? We asked readers to weigh in with their thoughts on having to pay for online news, and if they think it’s fair or not. To read more and respond, go here.

It was another great week in Long Valley, and we hope you enjoyed it.