|
Wednesday, September 5, 2007September 5 2007Paid Parking on Deck  Hundreds attended. Dozens expressed their views about paid parking, often straying into parking challenges and strategies. They were almost universally calm and polite. When it was all over, Village Trustee Lynne Mebust, who emceed both informational sessions – Thursday, Sept. 27, and Tuesday, Oct. 2, in the ornate second-floor courtroom of the Otsego County Courthouse – on village plans to charge for parking, observed: Nobody opposed paying for parking. "I can tell you," Village Trustee Jeff Katz said later, "it wouldn’t have been that way seven or eight years ago." The village trustees planned to meeting at 9 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 4 – after this edition had gone to press – to decide how to adjust the plan in response to the vast public input. (Please go to www.thefreemansjournal.com for a report on that session.) Friday, Oct. 5, they planned to complete a final draft, meeting a 10-day deadline in advance of their Monday, Oct. 15, monthly board meeting. On the 15th, a public hearing is planned at 8:30 p.m. Then, the trustees plan to vote. In introductory remarks at both sessions, Mebust spoke of "a sense of ugency regarding village finances" that is spurring the trustees to explore this option and several others to generate new revenues. She "conservatively" estimated revenues from charging for parking on Main and Pioneer streets and in the Doubleday Field parking lot at $250,000 a year. But trustee estimates have ranged as high as $400,000 and even $600,000, which would be about one-third of the $1.75 million the village levies annually in local taxes. The plan now would be for meters or "Pay and Display" machines that would charge $2 per hour for on-street parking, $1 in the Doubleday lot. However, people – primarily residents, given the time frame – could buy $10 parking permits in January and February which would excuse them from paying. Other than charging, the plan presented to the public changed nothing: time limits remained the same everywhere. Trustee Eric Hage – his father, Chuck Hage, later spoke similarly – argued in favor of doing something now to limit all-day parking in the Doubleday lot and charge more. "You need a parking schedule for the Doubleday Lot that maximizes the revenues," Chuck Hage said. Deputy Mayor Paul Kuhn – he, Mebust, Trustee Grace Kull and Police Chief Diane Nicols comprise the trustees’ police commitee, overseeing parking – said the village is planning $7.5 million in public works in the next five years, including $5.5 million in the next two summers. Without paid parking and other measures, "how will we do it?" he asked. The money has been earmarked for, first, a "complete redo" of streets, sewerage and water lines in the south end – Walnut, Delaware, Beaver and Chestnut streets, and Linden Avenue. Then, a similar redo is planned on Irish Hill. The village also plans to pursue becoming a city, which would give it more control over its finances, Kuhn said, but that’s "a long, arduous process." In contrast, parking represents "a very, very quick return." "We can control this," Katz said, seconding Kuhn. "We can establish something that can produce substantial revenue." While opposition was not vehement, discussion – even debate – was varied and lengthy. The Tuesday session, for instance, went from 7:30 p.m. to past 9:30 p.m. when, Mayor Carol B. Waller pointed out, the rental of the hall expired. That evening alone, 24 people spoke. A sampling: • Wendell Tripp, the former mayor, called the parking venture – it will require $100,000 for "Pay and Display" machines, if the trustees choose to go that route – "highly speculative," and he encouraged that the law be allowed to expire in two years, so that the trustees would have to reassess it and vote again. • Vinnie Russo, owner of Mickey’s Place, praised the concept of paid parking, but said the mechanisms to establish and enforce it hadn’t been sufficiently thought through. "I would throw it out the door," he said, (although he acknowledged later in the meeting he may have been too harsh.) (In response, Chief Nicols defended the revenue stream, saying a similar plan in Lake Placid covers all village personnel costs.) • Ashley Cooper suggest permit parking be limited to residents on residential streets. "It seems to me," she said, "you’re pushing parking to the residential streets." That promotes "circling," which poses hazards to children. • Marjorie Landers suggested the 5-6 week window for buying permits would put "older citizens who go south for the winter" at a disadvantage. Others suggested that college students, who are away during the school year, would be likewise negatively impacted. • John Bullis, Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce executive director, said, "If you need it for infrastructure you need it for infrastructure." Driver Education Urged In Chris Gentile's Memory  When a family from Cartersville, Ga., spent a night at Penny Gentile’s The Pines B&B on Nelson Avenue this summer, they learned how her son, Chris, had died in a car crash in early April and of the resulting heartache.Returning home, the first person they called was C. Alan Brown, a member of their church who had been energized by his teen-age son’s death to lead an effort that resulted in "Joshua’s Law," mandating expanded driver’s education in his home state. "You’ve got to call this lady," they told him. "Penny and I believe there are no coincidences in the world," Brown said in a telephone interview from Georgia the other day. "We both use the term, divine intervention." Divine intervention or just coincidence, no matter: 6-9 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10, Alan Brown will be in Cooperstown Middle/High School’s Sterling Auditorium advising parents, students, law-enforcement officials and state Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, among others, on how CCS can become a "prototype" of what exceptional driver’s education ought to be. The auditorium sits 500, and Penny Gentile said she hoping to fill the house. A letter to parents is being sent out this week, encouraging them to attend, according to High School Principal Gary Kuch, who said he is intrigued by the possibilities of Johnson’s program. Joshua was driving at 45 miles per hour in a rain storm on July 1, 2003, when his car began hydroplaning on the wet pavement and slid into a tree. The boy was severely injured and died nine days later. The father spent the next eight months in "the worst place a human being can be." Then he got on his knees and prayed, "God, I’ve got to know why this happened. For 2,000 years the world has known why your son died. Why did it happen to Joshua?" A few days later, "I sat straight up in the middle of the night," and he knew what to do. He wrote down the text of what would become Joshua’s Law, mandating driver’s education before young people get licenses, and two years later it passed the Georgia General Assembly "just as I wrote it that night." To pay for it, a 5 percent fee was placed on all traffic fines, raising $12 million annually. More than 200 of the state’s 351 high schools now require driver’s ed, and it’s growing. Mandating it was not enough. Alan Brown wanted driver’s education that worked. He was able to win appointment to an advisory committee of the National Institutes of Science’s Institute of Medicine dealing with that issue, and from that access to expertise the Joshua Brown Foundation he established developed a five-point curriculum: 1. Simulation: "If you’ve been flying a military jet for 30 years and you retire and go to work for Delta airlines, they’re not going to put you in a jet, they’re going to put you in a simulator," Brown said. Because of foundation efforts, the price of a simulator has dropped from $30,000 to $10,000, or schools can lease them for $10 per student. 2. An interactive curriculum: "Let’s take the textbook and throw it in the trash can," said Brown. "Kids learn day to day by being engaged." 3. Crash reduction: "UPS calls is ‘hazard recognition’ … People who have taken a good crash-reduction course have a 26.2 percent better driving record than the rest of us." 4. Parental involvement: "How do you engage momma and daddy in the process?" In Georgia, before a student can get a sticker to park in a high school parking lot, he or she has to take a two-hour driver’s ed class with one parent or the other. "We’ve never had a parent come up to us and say, this is an absolute waste of time; they all say, this is awesome." 5. Finally, when the first four steps are complete, the students gets to drive with a certified instructor. "When they get a student who’s been through simulation and an interactive curriculum, that’s a whole new ball of wax." The Joshua Foundation, said Brown, is working with 30 states and Canadian provinces on similar programs. When you realize 44,000 Americans – many of them young – are dying in crashes annually, you realize the extent of the problem and the challenge, he said. "I had taught Joshua how to be a gentleman," said his father, "how to balance a check book, how to buy and sell real estate, but there were certain things – in terms of driving a car – I didn’t know." He’s been working to close that gap ever since. For more information, visit www.joshuabrownfoundation.org Food Bank Fuller, But Not Secure The crisis has eased at the Cooperstown Food Bank, but it hasn’t passed, according to Fred St. John, who assists his wife Ellen and Audrey Murray in the effort at the Cooperstown Presbyterian Church. "Despite what Wall Street says," said St. John, "people are really squeezed." The other day, he said, 11 families came to the Food Bank, an unusually large number. The facility has been serving 115 families a month, 20-25 percent more than usual. Donations that followed an appeal issued in mid-September has resulted in sufficient donations to get the Food Bank through the next few weeks, but St. John encouraged donors to keep coming forward, since it will take the usual Christmas outpouring to put the effort back on a firm footing. Checks should be made out to Cooperstown Food Bank and mailed to 25 Church St., Cooperstown 13326. Jane Forbes Clark, Phil Pohl 'Heros' to CCS 5th Graders  There’s something new at Cooperstown Elementary School this year: The HERO program."HERO" stands for "Helping Everyone Respect Others," and is an offshoot of Mix It Up Day, itself an offshoot of tolerance.org, an offshoot of the Southern Poverty Law Center. What better way to help people respect others, thought Christine McBrearty Hulse, the elementary school counselor, then to identify role models? And so the Hero of the Month program was born. In September, the fifth graders went through an exercise to help them choose Heroes of the Month. They were asked to think about character traits: Friendly, brave, determine, courageous, helpful. Who did they know who had those character traits? Monday, Oct. 1, at a 2 p.m. assembly in the school cafeteria, the news was out. The fifth graders had chosen: • Jane Forbes Clarke, president of the Clark Foundation. In the citation prepared by Sarah Siegel, Jane Clark was praised for donating "her time and effort to making our town a beautiful place to live in," not only by planting flowers but by creating the Clark Sports Center, "where we can get away from home and be safe." Sarah also praise the Clark Foundation’s donation of computers for the schools. • Phil Pohl, the CCS baseball standout who will be attending Clemson next year on an athletic scholarship. Jack Donnelly, in his citation, said, "Phil is someone to look up to. When he plays baseball he is respectful -- no matter what the call!" On winning the sectionals last year, Pohl praised the whole team, rather than taking credit himself, Jack said. McBrearty said there were a number of nominees but, once opinion started to coalesce around Jane Clark and Pohl, all the fifth graders became enthusiastic about the choices and got behind them unanimously. Each month through March, different classes will be nominating Heroes of the Month, ending up with the kindergarteners. Jane Clark thanked the students for the honor, saying she is lucky to have ended up with a life’s work she enjoys so much. She encouraged the students to seek out vocations that will give them similar satisfaction. Wind Fans Ask PSC to Review 19 Turbine Cut FORE, a pro-wind power advocacy group, has asked the state Public Service Comission to revisit its decision to remove 19 turbines from the 68-turbine Jordanville Wind Project. Calling the PSC decision "appalling," FORE secretary Shirley Moyer said it places the concerns of people who live many miles away from the site ahead of the people of the towns of Jordan and Stark. The PSC had ruled the project had too great a visual mpact on the Glimmerglass National Historic District. Labels: Archives
Subscribe to Posts [Atom] |
|
 |
