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Friday, November 24, 2006November 24 2006Reunion Offers $2,000 Apiece To Windmill-Farm Neighbors CHERRY VALLEY Reunion Power is expanding the circle of landowners that would directly benefit from 24 turbines it plans on East Hill, offering a “meaningful” sum, not just to hosts, but to “more than two dozen” people whose properties are around the project, according to company Vice President David Little. “I have received a number of calls from folks who are taking an interest in this,” he said. “I’m actually very pleased with the response I’ve gotten so far.” “They’re hedging their bets just in case the ordinance passes,” said Andy Minnig of Advocates for Cherry Valley. One landowner was offered $2,000, according to Minnig, but Little declined to confirm that number, although he did say it is a flat amount, not based on the amount of acreage involved. In return, Reunion would own wind rights on those properties, and those receiving the payment would also have to agree to allow variances that would set aside the 2,000-foot setbacks that would be included in a wind ordinance the town board is scheduled to vote on Monday, Nov. 27. Little said Reunion planned to make an offer to neighbors well before now, but that the moratorium and wind-ordinance discussions put that idea on the back burner for a while. “Why are they so persistent?” asked Minnig. “Because they are expecting to take tens of millions of dollars a year out of this project. And it behooves the town to get some straight answers as to how much money is involved.” Meanwhile, the town board met Tuesday, Nov. 21, and voted unanimously to extend a 90–day development moratorium another 45 days so the ordinance can be in place before development begins anew. At the vote, the 30-some people in the town barn erupted into applause. The moratorium was do to expire and, if it had, Reunion’s plan potentially could have gone forward in advance of the wind-ordinance enactment. The next Cherry Valley Planning Board meeting is slate to take place on Jan. 16 Reunion has also announced an “Economic Benefits Open House” from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 29, in the Cherry Valley Community Center to detail the financial benefits it says will accrue to the town if the wind farm goes forward. Little breaks those down into four categories: • The landowner payments to turbine hosts. Again, these number are undisclosed, but Advocates says it is in the $8,000 per turbine range. • The new payments to neighbors. • The electricity benefit. Reunion had offered to pay half of Cherry Valley residents electrical costs (one–quarter of most bills when fees are included), but Little said it has been further sweetened. “I’m very excited,” he said. “This is going to be very well received. No other projects have done this.” • The PILOT – payments in lieu of taxes. Reunion offered $300,000 a year, or $7.5 million over 20 years. “If you add up all those layers,” said Little. “It’s a significant economic contribution to the community.” Winnie The Pooh Wanna-Be Raids Pierstown Hives  By BREN MIOSEK PIERSTOWN When the cartoon character Winnie the Pooh gets stuck in a tree after eating too much honey, audiences, young and old, laugh. But when a black bear barrels through Otsego County, chugging down every last bit of pollen and beeswax that gets in its way, people like Pierstown’s Paul Lord get mad. “He’s paid my place a visit for the last three nights,” said Lord, as he sorted bee-keeping equipment in the back of his truck. “He’s really starting to mess things up.” Lord called the state Department of Environmental Conservation in Stamford at 8 a.m. Monday, Nov. 13, “and they told me that I had to wait for bear season to open. All I wanted was a permit so I could shoot it before it did any more damage.” A mangled bird-feeder on top of a five-foot-tall post in Lord’s backyard, less than 20 feet from his back door, exemplifies the damage being wreaked. “He absolutely destroyed my bird feeder,” said Lord. “The problem with this bear is that it’s displaying characteristics of not being afraid of people. It’s being a nuisance and I want to shoot it.” The crumpled bird feeder, however, isn’t what’s bothering Lord the most. On Monday, Nov. 20 – the state bear season’s opening day – Lord ventured over to Armstrong Road to check on a colony of his bee hives. What he found made his blood boil. Something with enormous strength, size and tolerance to pain had charged through an electrical fence and nearly destroyed two of 11 hives. Frames and honey-comb were scattered in every direction. One of the damaged hives – a hive Lord considered productive - has a 15 percent chance of surviving through the winter, but the other was a total loss. “There wasn’t one bee left in that hive,” he said, picking up frames of wax and honey. Although rare locally not long ago, bear sightings are becoming more common. “Lately, we’ve had a fair number of complaints about black bears getting into bird feeders and garbage cans in Otsego County,” said DEC officer Bill Sharick. “It’s important to realize that Otsego County is bear territory now. It wasn’t before, but it is now.” A rise in local black bear sightings has people talking and some are asking: Are these big black mammals really nuisance bears from New Jersey. “To the best of my knowledge you do not drop our nuisance bears in New York State,” said Darlene Yuhas, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection spokesman. “That is not our policy or practice.” Because virtually all nuisance bear problems are the results of hungry bears being attracted to garbage, bird food, pet food and human food, these problems can be minimized by taking these basic precautions: • Never feed bears; it propagates and perpetuates nuisance bear activity. • Stop feeding birds as soon as the snow melts. • Dispose of garbage as frequently as possible and do not put it out at night. • Feed pets indoors and store pet food indoors. • Turn off kitchen exhaust fans that vent to the outside whenever possible. “This bear has been on a tear,” said Lord. “I had twice as many hives and worked three times as hard this year but made the same amount of honey. So far that bear has consumed 350-450 pounds of honey and pollen. Out of the 50 hives I had, I’m now down to about 30. “With all the rain we’ve had it’s been a rough year for bee-keeping. But to have it end like this – to a bear - only makes it more frustrating.” Neighbors Given Month To Save Toddsville Span  By JIM KEVLIN TODDSVILLE To mix metaphors, the Toddsville bridge has been on a roller-coaster ride in the past few days. On Thursday, Nov. 16, advocates for preserving the 19th century Pratt truss for pedestrians, bicyclists and fishermen appeared before the county’s Public Works Committee and were told they had a month to come up with a plan to fund, stabilize and repair the span. No sooner had they arrived home, however, then Jean and John Finch received a call from committee Chairman Jim Powers, advising them county Highway Superintendent Ron Tiderencel had arrived at the meeting and convinced the committee the bridge should be demolished sometime during the week of Nov. 20. Some of the neighbors - 65 had signed a petition asked that the bridge be spared - began mobilizing to see what could be done, drawing on the expertise of Otsego 2000 Executive Director Martha Frey and Brenda Berstler of WEGO, the local affiliate of Walk America. Then at 8 a.m. Friday, Nov. 17, a county crew directed by Jim Bottita and a backhoe from Scott R. Ubner Excavating, Fly Creek, arrived at the bridge and began tearing up the planking, prompting John Finch, then other neighbors, to hurry to the scene with “Save Our Bridge” signs. A flurry of conversations, phone calls and e-mails followed and by 1 p.m. Saturday County Rep. Nancy Iversen was able to e-mail her constituents: County Board Chairman Don Lindberg had given the bridge a reprieve: It would not be demolished for a least a month while the neighbors see if they can put together a plan to preserve it longterm. Finally, the group gathered at 7 a.m. Monday, Nov. 20, just in case the county crew showed up again. It did not, but the neighbors agreed to gather again at 1 p.m. the Saturday of Thanksgiving Weekend at the Goodnough Road home of Debra Guertze to continue its planning. Frey, who continues to assist the effort, said the bridge, built by the Wrought-Iron Bridge Co. of Canton, Ohio, sometime before 1884, had previously been identified as eligible for the state and national Historic Registers. Such eligibility “won’t stop demolition; but it certainly means it will have to be in consultation with other people,” she said. She said the demolition should also have gone through the SEQR process - as detailed in the State Environmental Quality Review Act - and she was unsure that had occurred. In his driveway alongside the bridge Friday morning, Ken Hotaling, who with wife his wife Joan favor demolition, pointed to a white house on the other side of Oaks Creek and said it had been bought by a “Dreams Park family” from Florida, who rented it through last summer to other families with children at the youth baseball facility in Hartwick Seminary. Some of those families got pretty rowdy, Hotaling said. Other neighbors said a couple of boys who lived in the Toddsville Trailer Park, also across the river from the Hotalings, had been up to occasional mischief, but that they had moved away. In an interview, Ron Tiderencel declared, “The bridge is deficient and should be removed.” “Anything can be fixed,” he said at another point. “The question is: Is it cost-effective for the people of Otsego County? No.” The county has almost 90 bridges, including four that were damaged by last summer’s flood, three of which will already have to be replaced in 2007: The Route 11D bridge in Hartwick, a Route 11 one in Laurens, and a Route 18 one in Pittsfield. While his crew keeps up on county bridges, it is bridges that devolve to the county when towns - in this case, Hartwick and Otsego - abandon them, that can become problematic. He said the Wells Bridge over the Susquehanna in the Town of Otego, near the Delaware County line, went through a debate similar to what’s happening in Toddsville now, but the hurdles to reviving it as a walking bridge were too high and the span is unused and neglected today. His crew has put an eight-foot tall chain-link fence at each end of the Toddsville bridge, but Tiderencel showed a photo - taken just that morning, Tuesday, Nov. 21 - of someone crossing the bridge regardless. “Our greatest fear is someone’s going to fall in,” he said. Some 14 neighbors turned out at 7 a.m. that Monday on the Hartwick side and, when the county crew didn’t return, they gathered in a circle to discussed what to do next. Nancy Iversen and Otsego Town Board member Anne Geddes-Atwell were the public officials present. Everett Pashley, who owns a driveway that skirts along the Otsego side of Oaks Creek, pointed out evidence of historic uses of the stream, including a mill race that runs behind a barn a couple of hundred feet from the streambed. Oaks Creek makes a couple of sharp turns just before the bridge and, if the abutments were removed, “the river could change course,” Pashley said. With various divertings for ponds and mills, who knows what the stream’s original course may have been, he said. Duncan’s New Book Hails ‘Cooperstown’  COOPERSTOWN It’s the only book about Cooperstown, and now it’s even moreso. Copies of the seventh edition of Louis C. Jones’ 1949 “Cooperstown” were due to arrive soon after this edition went to press, in time for the book signing scheduled for 4-6 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 25, at The Farmers’ Museum and featuring and Jane Forbes Clark, who underwrote the publication and wrote the introduction, and photographer Richard Duncan. Referring to the new “Cooperstown” simply as “the seventh edition” doesn’t capture what’s happened to what, until now, has been a slender volume. The sixth edition had 100 or so photos, all in black and white; the new one has 255 photos, 167 in full color. Referring to the 167 photos as “in full color” doesn’t capture what photographer Richard Duncan, whose “Otsego Lake, Past & Present,” is a staple in most every local household and many beyond, does with his camera. As with “Otsego Lake,” a look at some of the early runs demonstrates the same big vision combined with meticulous attention to detail and quality will be evident in the seventh edition. Duncan’s favorite photo is a small-scale one, from The Farmers’ Museum cooperage. The book’s editor, Paul D’Ambrosio, chief curator and vice president at the New York State Historical Association, likewise has a small-scale favorite: the museum’s smithy. Still, starting with the cover – the front of Leatherstocking Corp.’s headquarters at Cooper Park – Duncan’s Cooperstown has a larger-than-life feel. There’s a triple-bypass operation in progress at Bassett Hospital. There’s a Bruegelian scene – except with 20th century people – in the snow at The Farmer’s Museum. There are two waiters in bow ties on the steps of Nicoletta’s, giving the scene an Old World feeling. (Among the older photos, D’Ambrosio was struck by the contrast between Duncan’s operation and a scene in the maternity ward at Bassett, where some of the nurses weren’t even wearing surgical masks. And another, of orphans sledding down the hill near the old Chestnut Street orphanage.) Striking as Duncan’s photos are, the seventh edition has other additions. Jeff Idelson, National Baseball Hall of Fame vice president for communications, has written an extensive chapter on the Hall’s role in Cooperstown, including a time-line, D’Ambrosio said. Henry S.F. Cooper, former New Yorker writer, updated the material on his ancestors, Judge William Cooper, the community’s founder, and his novelist son James Fenimore Cooper. “A lot has happened in James Fenimore Cooper scholarship since Louie Jones wrote his book,” said Cooper. “There’s a new appreciation of his role as a source of American ideas of nature, conservation and, in particular now, the environment.” Asked why the seventh edition was so much more ambitious, D’Ambrosio answered emphatically, “We have Richard!” Richard Duncan arrived in Cooperstown in 1998 with, as he tells it, a bicycle, a beat-up Hasselblad and $3,000 after studying art and teaching photographer for a quarter-century. He worked in restaurants and for a while supervised lifeguards at Fairy Spring Park, all the time shooting images of Otesgo Lake’s natural beauty. In 2004, he approached Jane Clark about putting on an exhibit and publishing what became “Otsego Lake.” She liked Duncan’s plan and underwrote it. NYSHA plans to print 5,000 copies of “Cooperstown,” and another 5,000 next year of “Otsego County,” which is shaping up as a town-by-town photographic essay and is due to be published in 2007. The publishers are trying to hold the price at $39.95. “Cooperstown” has been a long-term success because Cooperstown is a special place, according to D’Ambrosio. “There are very few places that have the combination of cultural assets and natural beauty,” he said. Over the course of researching and editing the book, D’Ambrosio said he was most surprised by “the hand of Stephen Clark Sr.” and his “pervasive influence in developing the modern Cooperstown the way we know it.” Clark Sr. recruited Lou Jones to run NYSHA. He drove down to Baltimore to “personally recruit” Dr. James Bordley, credited with developing Bassett Hospital into the respected institution it is today. He helped protect Otsego Lake. He founded the Hall of Fame. Duncan helped shepherd the book through the printer, Brodock Press Inc., in Utica. The complete book was sent to Rochester for binding, and was due back in Utica to be shrink-wrapped and packed by the day after Thanksgiving. Cooperstown Gift Shopping Flatters Santa Editor’s Note: Santa Claus took a gift-hunting tour of Cooperstown’s baseball stores this week, and here’s what he came up with. How flattering! There it was, on the wall of Where It All Began, a hand-painted portrait of yours truly on the “Seasons Greetings from Cooperstown” baseball bat ($99.95). For little tykes, don’t miss the books at Augur’s, like Margaret and H.A. Rey’s “Curious George at the Baseball Game” ($3.95), Charles Schultz’s “Lucy Must Be Traded” ($4) and “Danny Dozer Hits a Home Run” ($3.95). For the teething set, there are the chunky books, “Baseball One, Two, Three” and “Baseball A, B, C” ($6.99 each). And there’s the complete wall of baby gear at Seventh-Inning Stretch, including team-logo bottles ($7.95), sippy cups ($9.95), The Little Sport Dinner Set ($15.95), warm-up suits ($34.95) and cheerleading uniforms ($24.95.) Augur’s also has the “American Sports History” jigsaw puzzle, and the Boston Globe front-page puzzle from that fated day, Oct. 28, 2004, when the Red Sox beat the Yanks, then went on to Boston’s first World Series since 1918. At Muskrat Hill, there’s a “Shoot a Loop” marble baseball game ($9.85). To preserve those family memories, take a look at “Cooperstown, Where Your Story Begins” frames ($19) and plaques ($25.95). At Where It All Began there’s a baseball trivia game ($14.95). The Factory Store at Doubleday Field sells sports-collection pin jewelry, your favorite team on French wire earrings ($7.99), and there are authentic pennants from the Kenosha Comets and South Bend Blue Socks ($22). The store also has a Cooperstown’s baseball ($12.99) with an image of Doubleday Field and historical facts about the field, Cooperstown and the origins of baseball. Some practical gifts: Legends Are Forever sells a hammer; the handle is white with red stitching ($22.95); team key blanks to have your home and office keys cut ($5.95), and, for kids, team-logo soft-pack lunch boxes ($9.99). For home or office, don’t miss Legends Are Forever’s high-intensity team-logo reading lamps ($4.94). A&E Sports sells team-logo Tiffany-style table lamps ($119) and black-shaded sedate versions ($79). For your kids’ room, TJ’s has team alarm clocks for $15.95. Team garbage pails ($9.95) and in CCS colors (orange and black), the combination hat and T-shirt set, on the “Cooperstown, Home of Baseball” theme ($19.95 at 30 percent off). Don’t forget Mickey’s Place, with “Baseball Cards Your Mother Threw Away” at varied prices, plus 20 percent off all jerseys. To wrap it all up – and help Santa’s elves – there is team-logo wrapping paper at Seventh-Inning Stretch. Labels: Archives
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