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Friday, October 27, 2006October 27 20068 Subdivisions Planned in Springfield; One Includes Town of Otsego Hillside  By JIM KEVLIN SPRINGFIELD In the current debate about what threat runaway development may or may not present, Hartwick Seminary – with Dreams Park, three hotels (and soon, perhaps, a fourth) and no zoning – is the poster child of what not to do. Few people think of the rural Town of Springfield, population 1,350, except for its long views of rolling hills and Otsego Lake. While no one was watching, however, development is coming to Springfield in a pretty big way. Eight subdivisions – termed “major” – are being considered here, and one of them has already been approved: off Pumpkin Hook Road, just west of Route 80, a quarter-mile short of Van Hornesville and the Herkimer County line. The developer is Henry Miller, a local farmer. Five percent of the town’s open land is spoken for, said Dave Staley, Planning Board chairman. If development continues at that rate, he said, all of Springfield will be built up in 20 years. One of the subdivisions, on Thurston Hill Road – 15 lots on 178 acres overlooking the lake and the Sleeping Lion from the west – straddles the Springfield-Otsego town line. This, despite many among the 300 people at an informational meeting at the Otsego Town Hall in Fly Creek Monday, Oct. 22, asserting development won’t come to that community in the foreseeable future. And the developer, Fraydun Manocherian, owns the ridge well into Pierstown and perhaps beyond, according to Dave Staley, chairman of the Springfield Planning Board. “This is the first chunk of his property that’s being subdivided,” said Staley. “And he’s got a lot more.” The other six subdivisions include two proposed by Ted Beckingham: • Ala-York North, 12 lots on 181 acres on Route 30 near Bartholomew Road, a couple of miles north of East Springfield and Route 20. • Ala-York South, 20 lots on 308 acres straddling Route 20 to the east of Continental and Fassett roads, on the hill the drops down beyond the General James Clinton monument, surrounded by a fence of metal spikes. “We’ve got everything under way,” said Staley. “We’re waiting for the results of the perk tests.” And four others are proposed by Todd Schroeder, who moved to Otsego County from the Hudson Valley and is associated with Springfield Center Realty, founded in the spring, whose signs are visible throughout the town: • Mount Tom, which comprises 18 lots on 38 acres in the town’s northwest corner, near the Pumpkin Hill project. • County Line, 237 acres; Airport, 58 acres, and Overlook, 63 acres. These are in the preliminary stages. The tally is already up to 65 lots, and full approval could push that number well over 100. While Conservation Subdivision Regulations are being debated in Fly Creek, Schroeder is planning something very similar in his Mount Tom subdivision, according to Staley: Since Springfield has no zoning, he is clustering the house-lots and using the contours of the land to protect the future homes from any undesireable development that may occur in the neighborhood. According to Staley’s count, his planning board approved two “major” subdivisions – as defined by the State Environmental Quality Review Act – in 2005. This year, it has approved one – Miller’s – and the seven others are pending. Last year, the board approved five “minor” subdivisions – breaking off a lot or two from a larger parcel – and two were pending at the end of the year. This year, four minor subdivisions have been approved and two are pending, Staley said. Drive to the various subdivision sites around the Town of Springfield, and there’s little clue of what’s coming, only an occasional line of wooden stakes with plastic streamers attached, marking a property line or sketching out a prospective road. Yellow diamond-shaped signs on the side of the road alert drivers to cow crossings and Amish buggies. Pumpkin Hook, Mount Tom and Ala-York North are “right on the divide,” said Staley, “you can probably see in both directions” – toward Otsego Lake to the south and the Mohawk Valley to the north. Where will the prospective buyers come from? Staley isn’t sure, but – a state archeologist – he commutes to Albany once or twice a week and points out that’s only an hour away from this end of the county. This open country is also only about a half-hour from Utica. As in Otsego, the Springfield planning board has begun working with Nan Stolzenburg of Community Planning & Environmental Associates from the Albany area. As she did in Otsego, she’s prepared a “build-out map” for Springfield, which shows that – as it stands – homes can be built on virtually all of the town. “That would be the worst-case scenario,” said Staley. Stolzenburg is meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 30, with town leaders to begin the planning conversation. Glimmerglass Queen’s Berth Scrutinized  By Tom Heitz COOPERSTOWN For villagers who exercise daily vigilance over the shorelines and waters of Otsego Lake, temporary bright yellow scaffolding recently erected around the Glimmerglass Queen slip at the foot of Fair Street was a surprising addition to a familiar waterscape. “We got calls about it yesterday,” Al Keck, village zoning officer, said on Wednesday, Oct. 25. Paula Wikoff, operator of the Glimmerglass Queen, said the scaffolding was put in place in preparation for the planned installation of a pylon-anchored canvas boat shelter. The structure will be permanent, with a custom-designed and manufactured canvas top and sides. Installation is expected to require another week or two, after which the scaffolding will be removed. “It’s finishing the project we started several years ago,” Wikoff explained. “We want it to be neat and professional looking and aesthetically pleasing.” The pylons – posts driven into the lake bottom – had previously been installed and the canvas covering for the slip was the last phase. According to documents in village files that Keck provided The Freeman’s Journal, Wikoff appeared before the village Planning Board on March 23, 2004. At that meeting, the Planning Board adopted a motion by member Bill Rigby “to relinquish lead agency status regarding the boat dock at 10 Fair St.” to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The motion was seconded by Teresa Drerup and received unanimous support from voting members of the board. At a subsequent meeting of the trustees on March 25, 2004, a motion to relinquish lead agency status to DEC was adopted unanimously with the notation: “Plans are on file in the Zoning Enforcement Officer’s office.” Keck was looking for those plans at presstime and had requested that Wikoff submit copies of any plans for the dock that were in her possession. According to Wikoff, DEC proceeded to act as the lead agency and eventually issued a permit. A DEC document provided by Keck describes the project’s parameters in these terms: “…remove an existing single dock and replace it with a two-sided dock, for docking of a tour boat, and to perform maintenance dredging of approximately 173 cubic yards of material from the same dock area in Otsego Lake.” The document bears a notation: “This is not a permit.” Wikoff said she had also installed a boat lift to elevate the vessel from the water to facilitate state-mandated hull inspections and maintenance. The DEC documents make no mention of the boat lift or a canvas boat shelter. Village zoning regulations appear to prohibit construction of buildings or structures within 100 feet of the shoreline. To what extent such regulations are operative in light of DEC’s jurisdiction as lead agency has not been clarified. Races for Congress Watched COOPERSTOWN You would hardly know it, but two hard-fought election campaigns are under way in Otsego County’s two Congressional district, microcosms of the national struggle between Republicans and Democrats for the control of the U.S. House or Representatives. You would hardly know it, because Otsego County is at the tail-end of both districts: • The 20th Congressional District – incumbent Republican John Sweeney is being challenged by Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand – begins on the east side of the Susquehanna River at Cooperstown, then loops south through Delaware County, skirting Schoharie County, into the Hudson Valley. It runs up and down the Hudson from Dutchess County to Essex County in the Adirondacks, skirting Albany. • The 24th Congressional District – Rome-based state Sen. Ray Meier, a Republican, is competing with Oneida County D.A. Mike Arcuri, a Democrat, for the seat being vacated by Sherwood Boehlert – goes the other way. It begins on the west side of the Susquehanna at Cooperstown and loops north through Utica to include all of Herkimer County; it also loops west through Cortland and Auburn all the way to Geneva. Not only is the county at the end of the political road geographically, its 34,000 voters are a drop in the ocean of the 1.3 million votes up for grabs in the 20th and 24th; just 3 percent, actually. (Census 2000 determined the average Congressional district would have 646,952 voters.) Nonetheless, both races are close enough that both Republican and Democratic congressional campaign committees are pouring resources into the campaigns, evident in Otsego County by the amount of political advertising on local TV stations Mayor Carol Bateman Waller was squiring Meier around Cooperstown this week: To Bassett Healthcare and to the Clara Welch Thanksgiving Home. And she said he’s been here six times so far in this campaign. That’s undoubtedly more than Gillibrand, who plans to be in the county Monday, Oct. 30, as well as Arcuri and Sweeney, whose bases of support are elsewhere. That said, Otsego County voters will be summoned to the polls nonetheless, from 6 a.m to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 7, to elected candidates, not just for Congress, but for governor (Spitzer vs. Faso), U.S. Senate (Clinton vs. Spencer), attorney general (Cuomo vs. Pirro) and state comptroller. Sweeney v. Gillibrand Sweeney, who was born in Troy, pointed out he has been able to bring $3 billion back to the district since he was elected to Congress in 1999, most recently in the wake of the June flooding in Delaware and southern Otsego counties. His proudest moments in public service have been in the wake of Sept. 11, when he was able to help New York State get “more of its fair share” of federal anti-terrorism funds, he said. A graduate of Sage College, Sweeney received his law degree from Western New England College School of Law. Among other things, he was chief counsel for the state Republican Party and state labor commissioner in the Pataki Administration before his election. Gillibrand, an Albany native and lawyer with Boies, Schiller & Flexner in New York City, said she would bring “honesty and integrity” to the office. (The incumbent has been battling various allegations, including that he flew to the Northern Marianas with an associate of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff; Sweeney said the trip was paid for by the Saipan Chamber of Commerce.) She said she would pursue a number of Democratic platforms, including middle-class tax cuts, lower health-care costs and lower energy prices. She said she favors energy independence through the pursuit of biofuel, ethanol, solar and hydro power, calling alternative energy “the next great market opportunity.” She said she favors windpower, but not everywhere, and she would like to see communities develop windpower for their own benefit. A magna cum laude graduate of Dartmouth, she received her law degree from the Los Angeles Law School of the University of California. Meier v. Arcuri Meier, a native of Rome, said Otsego County voters because whoever is elected will be a freshman in D.C. “Which candidate is going to as effective as possible as quickly as possible?” he asked. “I’m a legislator; this is a legislative job.” He pointed out that the Tug Hill Plateau was in his state Senate district and, due to poor economic conditions there, the 195-turbine Maple Hill Wind Farm was welcomed by the community. The Cherry Valley and Jordanville projects, which have met local opposition, are a different story, he said; communities must play a role in determine their own destinies. He said he also favors legislation requiring regional planning for facilities that have an impact on more than one community. Meier is a former Oneida County executive who spent 12 years in the state Senate. He said his proudest accomplishment was to prevent two Base Realignment Commission from cutting back military facilities in Rome. He received his bachelor’s and law degree from Syracuse University. Like Gillibrand, Arcuri, who is from Utica, spoke to local impacts of national issues. The Republican Congress has cut back student aid, which effects not only middle-class families, but also Otsego County residents who work at SUNY Oneonta or Hartwick College. He said he would support vigorous efforts at energy independence, but said there has to be a balance. He compared efforts to site wind-turbine farms in communities that don’t want them to the state’s effort to push power lines through his hometown. He receive his bachelor’s degree at SUNY Albany, where he played football, and his law degree from the New York School of Law. Agnes Jones, Much Loved, Remembered COOPERSTOWN The step-mother/step-child relationship isn’t the easiest, which makes David Jones’ testimonial to Agnes Jones that much more meaningful.“She was a very, very supportive, loving person,” said Jones, whose wife, Lynn, is one of the prime movers behind a memorial service for “Aggie” Jones at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28, at the Louis C. Jones Center at The Farmers’ Museum. “She was very quick to offer her advice and her assistance when she felt it could be helpful. She was very concerned about her stepchildren and the decisions they made in their lives,” he said. “She was very eager to help them find happiness and success.” That theme runs through many of the reminiscences about Mrs. Jones, who died May 1 at age 91. She was the wife and then widow of Louis C. Jones, director of the New York State Historical Association. He served from 1946 to 1972, and The Farmers’ Museum and Cooperstown Graduate Program in Museum Studies were founded during his tenure. “They were more in love than any couple I’ve ever met,” said Pati Drumm Grady, local businesswoman and a CGP graduate. “They would finish each other’s sentences. They had so many common interests. And there was always lots of laughter.” The Joneses were married for 37 years, collaborating on many levels. “She stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Lou, making her own contributions in forging the unique culture by which ‘Coopies’ are known the world over,” Steve Sevits, another CGP alum, said at a 1997 reception in her honor. (Due to illness, she couldn’t attend. By then, the couple had moved to a retirement community in Haverford, Pa.) Labels: Archives
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