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Founders Seek Investors
For Bank of Cooperstown By JIM KEVLIN COOPERSTOWN The name Howard J. Aufmuth of First National Bank of Cooperstown (before it was absorbed by Bankers’ Trust, then Key Bank) was on people’s lips. For decades, Mr. Aufmuth exemplified – or at least evoked – the traditional image of a small-town banker, someone who knew his clients, who on a handshake would lend a farmer $20,000 until the corn crop came in. The Aufmuth spirit ranged Templeton Lounge at The Otesaga Wednesday morning, April 25, and that afternoon at Arrowhead Pointe, as the concept of a new Bank of Cooperstown, a local bank with a “small-town feel” and “local touch,” was unveiled for potential investors. The bank is the brainchild of Robert F. O’Neill, the Wall Street executive who has maintained a summer home on Lake Road for years. He credits his daughter, Marilyn O’Neill Wagner, a banker, with nudging him into the banking venture. His other daughter, Roberta, is Mrs. Charles B. Kieler of Cherry Valley. “This is the Bank of Cooperstown,” O’Neill said, “not 1-800-get-frustrated.” O’Neill formed USNY Bank, based in Geneva in the Finger Lakes region, intending the Bank of Cooperstown as its only branch. However, he hired a Geneva banker, Michael A. Briggs, as president and CEO, and Briggs’ contacts there convinced O’Neill to launch a Bank of Geneva branch first. Capitol Bancorp of Lansing, Mich., which owns 51 percent of USNY’s shares, has a similar arrangement with 50 local banks nationwide. Its business model is to provide the back-office support – data processing, human resources, even check printing – for largely independent local operations, Briggs told the gathering. Both the Geneva and Cooperstown banks are developing on more-or-less parallel tracks, although USNY Bank’s board of directors is tilted toward the latter. In addition to O’Neill, it includes J. Michael Moffat, the entrepreneur and owner of Sam Smith’s Boatyard and the Blue Mingo, Robert M. Blum, the Wall Street investor and chairman of the board of the Hyde Hall National Historic Landmark, and Robert Ranger, an investment consultant based in West Winfield. The bank plans to open for business this summer at 73 Chestnut St., the Ron Mitchell Art & Antiques building, after renovations are completed and a parking lot installed. The night before the Templetown Lounge meeting, the village Zoning Board approved the bank’s sign, the final local regulatory step. Already, however, the new bank’s president, Scott White, and vice president Michelle Catan, both formerly of Wilber Bank, have been running a “loan production office” on Route 28 south of the village in anticipation of the opening. The idea is to begin generating income even before the retail operations starts. As O’Neill explained it, launching a local bank in Cooperstown has been on his mind for five years. But it began to take shape 15 months ago when he arranged a meeting in Albany with Joseph D. Reid, founder and chairman of Capitol Bankcorp. Capitol Bancorp, founded in 1988, has undergone dramatic growth in the past decade, increasing its local banks from 17 in 1998 to 50 today and a prospective 100 by 2011. In 1996, 96 percent of its banks were in the Great Lakes region; today, that share is 48 percent, as Capitol Bancorp expanded in the Southwest, then around the country. The Geneva and Cooperstown banks will be the first in the Northeast. This growth made Capitol Bancorp a Wall Street darling as it raised its dividends for 15 quarters in a row. Because of the “one-state recession in Michigan” – caused by the Big Three’s troubles – bank profits dropped 37 percent in the first quarter of this year. However, the Associated Press quoted Reid as saying the dip in the Michigan operations will be picked up by expansion elsewhere. O’Neill described a parallel situation: The company invested in Arizona when banking there was at an ebb; when California banking dipped five years later, Arizona had rebounded. Because Capitol Bancorp maintains 51 percent ownership, all of the regulatory matters will be handled in Lansing, freeing up local banks to do Aufmuth-style small-town banking. The local autonomy will allow the Bank of Cooperstown to do “much larger deals than most startup banks can do,” Mike Briggs told the gathering. That’s because Capitol Bancorp has assets of $4.1 billion and earnings in 2006 of $41 million. Its stock, listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CBC, comprises 16.7 million shares. The Bank of Cooperstown’s limit will be $3 million per transaction and $6 million “per relationship,” Briggs said. With regional banks, decisions about loans of $300,000 to $500,000 are made at the regional, not local level. Conceivably, the officers at new bank will be able to make those decisions locally. The goal of the April 25 meetings was to encourage local businesspeople to buy the $10 shares in blocks of $1,000 to $250,000. A broader investment base makes for “a better network of people” to buoy the bank going forward, Scott White said. It Might Raise $600,000, But 500 Sign Petition Against IdeaBy JIM KEVLIN COOPERSTOWN Just as no good deed goes unpunished, sometimes it seems no parking plan goes undisputed. The village trustees’ Police Committee has been developing a high-tech option aimed at rewarding people who park away from the downtown and charging people who want the convenience of pulling into a space in the downtown. The concept, said Trustee Paul Kuhn, the committee chair, is to take advantage of the latest technology, testing it out in the Doubleday Field parking lot. Drivers would park, walk to a nearby Pay-by-Space machine and buy the amount of time they think they need, using either cash or a credit card, then place the receipt on their dash board. Now, parking downtown is free; but people who park in the village’s parking lots at the periphery have to pay $3 to ride into town. That’s backwards, Kuhn said, given the desirable outcomes. However, Robin Grey, who operates Essential Elements, right off the parking lot, said the village should take care of employees and business owners first, providing them with convenient parking, and she’s gotten 500 signatures on a petition supporting her point of view. Under the Pay-by-Space plan, anyone could buy a permit for the summer season – parking’s plentiful in the winter – for $125. Grey believes that local people should be able to park downtown, and tourists should be required to park in the peripheral lots and take the trolley. Jeff Foster, who runs Legends Are Forever on Main Street, presented the petition on Grey’s behalf Tuesday morning, April 10, at the Police Committee meeting. His concerns are immediate: With Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn’s inductions into the National Baseball Hall of Fame expected to draw record crowds, “let’s not play doctor this summer,” he said. Another merchant at the meeting, Vinnie Russo of Mickey’s Place, came down opposite Foster and Grey. “Communities that don’t charge for parking are the exception these days, not the rule,” he said. According to Russo, there are 450 parking place in the downtown. At $1 an hour, that would be $8 per space per day. Over the season, he said, the village could raise an estimated $600,000. “It’s time for the village to come to grips with a stagment tax base,” Russo said. There’s no room for further development; the municipality needs to look for new revenue sources. Kuhn agreed. “The point is not whether it’s 600 thousand or 400 thousand,” he said. “There is significant opportunity for us to reap some revenue from people who are visiting the village.” Now, “essentially, the village isn’t getting anything from tourism.” Nothing is carved in stone, he said, but the Committee Members -- himself, Police Chief Diane Nicols, and Trustees Grace Kull and Lynne Mebust -- plan to engage the other trustees in conversation at the village board’s monthly meeting at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 16, at 22 Main. Depending on that discussion, the Police Committee may draft a specific proposal that would have to go to public hearing before the trustees could adopt it. If all goes well, however, Kuhn said the Pay-by-Space system could be in place by summer. Mebust, who was elected to the village board only last month, encouraged people with concerns about parking to come to the Police Committee meeting next month. There are diverse views about parking, she said, adding, “It’s trying to balance all of those interests that’s going to be the trickiest part of finding a solution.”  Spitzer OKs Incentives For Jordanville Project COOPERSTOWN The Final Environmental Impact Statement has yet to be completed, but the Spitzer Administration is showering largesse on Community Energy’s 68-turbine Jordanville Wind Project. The project is one of nine wind projects – 21 clean-energy projects in all, when hydroelectric and biomass are included – targeted for $295 million in “performance incentives” in Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s speech, “15 by 15, A Clean Energy Strategy for New York,” delivered to Crain’s Breakfast Business Roundtable in New York City on Thursday, April 19. He said such incentives have attracted $2 billion in private investment to date in clean energy. The incentives were announced jointly by NYSERDA (the state Energy Research & Development Agency) and the state Public Service Commission in conjunction with Spitzer’s speech, but few speech, but few details were immediately forthcoming from those quarters. NYSERDA spokesperson Colleen Ryan said she didn’t know how much has been set aside for the Jordanville project in particular, and she said the specifics of Community Energy’s bid – how much it planned to produce in return for what state incentive – wouldn’t be made public because it was part of a “competitive solicitation.” She also said, if anyone objects, there is no appeals process within NYSERDA. At the PSC, spokesperson Anne Dalton said her agency’s role is to issue a “certificate of public convenience and necessity,” but that would await adoption of the impact statement. In Jordanville, Warren Town Supervisor Richard Jack, who has supported the local wind project, said, “More power to them (Community Energy); I’m glad they’re keeping the money in New York State.” At Holy Trinity Monastery, the center of the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia, Father Luke Murianka, the deputy abbott, when told of the incentives, responded, “Are you serious?” The monks issued a statement a month ago objecting to the project, and the Community of St. Elizabeth, six nuns affiliated with the monastery followed up a few weeks later. However, Father Luke declined to comment further, saying, “Right now, we have a little bit of a legal problem.” He declined to get any more specific. Sue Brander of Advocates for Stark didn’t mince words. “It’s throwing away upstate; that’s what I think of it,” said the Van Hornesville woman. In Cooperstown, Otsego 2000 Executive Director Martha H. Frey said, while the governor’s “15 by 15” plan has much going for it, clean-energy policy “shouldn’t be reduced to a sound bite.” “The State of New York should not rush to establish public policies that could destroy Upstate New York by siting enormous wind power projects in the wrong places,” Frey said, noting the impact the 68 turbines would have on the Glimmerglass National Historic District and the Route 20 Scenic Byway. She also expressed concerns about blasting of karst limestone atop the southern Herkimer aquifer. The Jordanville Wind Project would erect the 5-6 dozen windmills along a ridge that runs east-west across southern Herkimer County from Van Hornesville in the Town of Stark to Jordanville in the Town of Warren. The Warren Town Board, which is the lead agency in the State Environmental Quality Review process, met Monday, April 23, but went into executive session instead of approving the impact statement, as some suggested. Bernard Melewski, the Saratoga Springs lawyer who is representing the town in this matter, said he had to discuss a “legally confidential” issue with the town board, which will meet again Friday, May 4, and again will consider the impact statement. It can approve that document without making it public in advance, Melewski said, but the town board would have to issue permits before construction can begin, and that would require a further public hearing. He said “I presume there are contingencies” before the state would issue the incentives to Community Energy. New Owner Is Reassuring: Cottage Will Stay Crooked BUCHINGER COOPERSTOWN Somehow, “Plumb and Level Cottage” just doesn’t have quite the same ring as “Crooked Cottage.” Tuesday afternoon, April 24, crews began work on the home at 41 Lake St., and rumors began flying that the home’s new owner was going to straighten Crooked Cottage. “I wouldn’t go that far,” said Al Keck of the Cooperstown Village zoning department, which supplied the permit for the work. “They are shoring up the foundation, and to do that they demolished the porch on the western side of the building, and they will rebuild it once the structure is given a new foundation.” Cooperstown need not fear losing its Crooked Cottage, however. When all the work is completed, right angles will still be scarce in the 19th-century house. Straightening the house “is not even possible,” said Lisbeth McCoy, who owns the home with her husband Jason. “That’s not at all what I’m aiming at,” she said. “It was sitting for sale for a long time, and I bought it because I wanted to make sure the house did not change. I’m very concerned with preserving it. It’s such a big part of Lake Street.” The house is composed of two sections that meet at through-the-looking-glass angles, earning it the time-honored nickname Crooked Cottage. Pierson’s mother, Polly Stokes Pierson inherited the home from her parents. When she died in 2004, the house was sold to Glimmerglass Opera. Jason McCoy, an art dealer with galleries in New York City, has been a regular in Cooperstown for 22 years, and Lisbeth McCoy has been coming here since 2001. The couple also owns property outside of the village. Eve Pierson of Cooperstown spent childhood summers at Crooked Cottage, which belonged to her grandparents, Walter and Polly Stokes. When you look in the front door, “there’s nothing that’s a rectangle, because nothing would open,” Pierson said. All the doors are cut at polygon angles to compensate for the skewed lines. Did being in the house give her vertigo? “Absolutely,” she answered. She remembers her mother being “very proud of a new bar cart” she’d bought from Homescapes, Ellen Weir’s former store where Alex & Ika restaurant will open this summer. “The minute she put it in the kitchen, the thing flew right out onto the back porch,” Pierson said. National History Day Matters To NYSHA, Steve Elliott Says COOPERSTOWN In National History Day competition a few years ago, contestants from Arkansas tracked down some of the surviving nine black students who had to be escorted into Little Rock High School in 1957 by federal troops. “It was very, very compelling,” said D. Stephen Elliott, New York State Historical Association president. “As a result of their research, one of the women came to the National Contest and spoke.” So when 400 young people from around the state descended on NYSHA on the evening of Thursday, April 26, to participate in a full day of contests culminating in an awards ceremony the following evening, it must have given Elliott a sense of deja vu. For since his arrival in Cooperstown in 2005, he has seen National History Day as one of an array of ready-made opportunities to elevate NYSHA’s profile statewide, “from Long Island to Buffalo to Plattsburgh.” “It’s a great program for us,” he said, “because we ARE a New York State Historical Association. It’s a marquee educational program for us.” The Little Rock episode – President Eisenhower had ordered in the 82nd Airborne when Gov. Orville Faubus defied an integration order – was one of the outstanding entries Elliott remembers, but he was sold on National History Day – history, period – well before that experience. As a boy growing up in western Maryland, “I was fascinated by biography – presidential biography,” he said. Family vacations were often planned around visiting battlefields and presidential homes. Leading up the education program at Colonial Williamsburg in the 1980s, he was on the National History Education Association board of directors, and found himself in the midst of a discussion about developing a national competion “we could conceive and get behind.” That’s when he found out one already existed. It had been founded in 1974 by Dr. David Van Tassel, a Case Western Reserve history professor, as a one-day contest for elementary and high school students he called National History Day. Despite the name, it had been largely limited to the Midwest, so “we brought it to Colonial Williamsburg and integrated it into our educational efforts in the early ‘90s.” As in many things, National History Day is a world of its own, with its own pecking order. Elliott discovered New York State’s program was in the top third, but hardly in the ranks of National History Day heavyweights like Minnesota and Texas. His goal is to get New York State in the top 20 in “the next couple of years,” and in the top five in five years. Nonetheless, soon after Elliott arrived, the woman who had been running the state program left for Ohio. “That could have been disastrous for us,” he said. However, he soon recruited a “terrific team” – a teacher from Florida, John Buchinger, as associate director of education, and Toby Voigt, a Cooperstown Graduate Program alumna, as director of statewide programs. The two have been combing the state energetically, preaching the National History Day gospel. Additionally, both are “Web savvy” and have crafted and uploaded history curricula that teachers across the state can easily download and incorporate into their programs. A $180,000 grant from state Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, helped too. This year – the first for the Buchinger-Voigt team – they have raised the number of participating schools from 85 to 125. Some 7,500 students – Cooperstown Central School youngsters among them – developed projects based on this year’s theme, “Triumph and Tragedy.” The 400 who are coming to Cooperstown for the statewide contest have already won contests in their home regions. The winners will go on to national competition in College Park, Md., in June. This is just one piece of Elliott’s strategy to give NYSHA higher visibility statewide. For another, it is co-sponsoring - along with the state Archives Partnership Trust – and hosting The Conference on New York State History in June. Teachers workshops, a higher profile for the CGP and other initiatives – NYSHA is in the midst of developing a strategic plan right now – are in the works. For the boy from Hagerstown, this is no idle pursuit. History matters. And getting young people involved – “If they do it, they’ll remember it forever” – is important. “People are a lot more familiar with the Simpsons than with the Supreme Court – that’s why it matters.” | Jan. 04, 2008 | Local Honor Roll | Pages From The Paper | july 6th 2007 | Hall of Fame Friday | Hall of Fame Saturday | Hall of Fame Sunday | Hall of Fame Monday | July282006 Archive | Aug042006 Archive | Aug112006 Archive | Aug182006 Archive | Sept012006 Archive | Sept082006 Archive | Sept152006 Archive | Sept222006 Archive | Sept292006 Archive | Oct062006 Archive | Oct132006 Archive | Oct202006 Archive | Oct272006 Archive | Nov032006 Archive | Nov172006 Archive | Nov242006 Archive | Dec012006 Archive | Dec082006 Archive | Dec152006 Archive | Dec222006 Archive | Dec292006 Archive | Jan052007 Archive | Jan192007 Archive | Jan262007 Archive | February092007 Archive | February162007 Archive | February232007 Archive | March162007 Archive | March232007 Archive | March302007 Archive | March302007 Archive | April132007 News Archive | Chris Gentile | Obituary | April272007 Archive | May112007 Archive | May112007 Archive | May252007 Archive | June 22, 2007 | July 13 2007 | Sept05 2007 | Sept 7th 2007 | Aug 31st 2007 | Local Law Parking | October 26, 2007 | Nov. 2 2007 | Nov. 16, 2007 | Glimmerglass Oct 5,2007 | Nov 16., 2007 | November 30 2007 | Nov. 30, 2007 | Dec. 07, 2007 | Dec. 14, 2007 | Dec. 21, 2007 | Dec. 28, 2007 | Jan. 11, 2008 | Jan. 18, 2008 | Jan. 25, 2008 | Feb 1, 2008 | Feb. 8, 2008 | Feb. 22, 2008 | GlimmerGlass Feb. 15, 2008 | Sports Feb. 15, 2008 | Feb.28, 2008 | March 7, 2008 | March 14, 2008 | GlimmerGlass March 14, 2008 | March 21, 2008 | March 28, 2008 | April 4, 2008 | April 11, 2008 | April 18, 2008 | April 25, 2008 | May 9, 2008 | May 2, 2008 | May 23, 2008 | | Our Services | Contact Us | Great Links | Return Home | Classified Ads | News Archive | Cooperstown Homes | Calendar -Best Bets | Letters to the Editor | |
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