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 In the News This Week -- August 11, 2006 |
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 Planners Try to Understand How to Regulate 24 Windmills By BREN MIOSEK and RUSS HONICKER CHERRY VALLEY "I don't understand," Jeff Wait, chairman of the Cherry Valley Planning Board, kept saying at the Wednesday, Aug. 9, meeting, his board's first since the town board rejected a moratorium that would have delayed construction of 24 windmills on East Hill for 12 months, perhaps forever. "I don't understand." Wait's refrain came throughout a discussion of sound-level impacts, ambient noise measurements and competing standards, one established by the state Department of Environmental Protection, the other by NYSERDA, the state Energy Resources Development Agency. No action was taken at the meeting, but Reunion Power executives, Vice President David Little and Managing Partner Steve Eisenberg, pledged to give the planners 30 days before resubmitting their application to build 24 400-foot-tall windmills north of the village. The planning board had gathered to discuss and review a wind ordinance adopted by the Town of Clinton and tailor it to Cherry Valley's needs. “It is the opinion of our lawyer that we establish a level of protection,” said Wait. “An ordinance in place would provide us with a new level of protection.” Wait, however, repeatedly stated that not enough of the proposed ordinance was clear to him or others and that more time was needed to make educated and rational decisions. “What we're trying to do is not an easy process,” he said. “What we're trying to do here takes time.” Following further discussion that touched on limiting the overall number of windmills to 24, Reunion Power representatives offered to withdraw their application for an additional 30 days to allow the planners more time to consider the ordinance. The planning board accepted. The meeting was held in a small board room in the town barn, where more than 200 people gathered Monday, July 31; 96 people spoke, all but 20 against the project, then the town board voted, 2-1, not to enact the moratorium. This was the first meeting on the windmill project since then, and a couple of dozen citizens, along with Little and Eisenberg, soon were questioning how sound from the turbines would be measured. "It doesn't seem reasonable if you do not measure the noise from the property line," said one audience member. "None of us understand these measurements regarding sound," Wait said. If the turbines sound "like a Harley-Davidson, then we'll have to see." Reunion's Little was asked how the company measures sound impact, and he said: "We have engineers, and they measure in different seasons, with the leaves on the trees and with the leaves off the trees." He did not say where the sound would be measured: at the turbine, at nearby houses, at the property line. Wait said the town would appoint an engineer to measure noise levels. Andy Minnig, chairman of Advocates for Cherry Valley; Martha Frey, Otsego 2000 executive director; Nick Pressly, an environmental engineer; and landowners Greg Noonan and Peggy Smith were among those with questions. Little stated that he was under the impression that the people of Cherry Valley who were for the wind project would be for the ordinance. Wait said, in his opinion, most of the people in town oppose the windmills. "I really don't have time to be doing this," said an apparently frustrated Wait, referring to battering between those in attendance. "No matter what happens, people will be upset. We're under the gun, under the time clock. It's going to appear that we're favoring one side or the other, but we're not. "Short of an act of God, I don't think it's going away," he concluded. The planning board agreed to meet again at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 6, for a closed meeting.  By JIM KEVLIN COOPERSTOWN Even before the National Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Weekend 2006 began, the buzz leading up to 2007 could be heard. Even before Bruce Sutter and the 17 Negro Leagues standout were inducted, tour operators had told the Hall of Fame they'll be bringing 110 bus loads of fans to town Friday through Sunday, July 27-29, next year to witness the anticipated induction of former Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken Jr. and several other front-line stars. That number of buses has risen 25 percent since then, according to Jeff Idelson, the Hall of Fame's director of communications. By contrast, only five buses attended this year's induction. "We've known for quite some time that 2007 was going to be quite a year," said Idelson. "Cal Ripken has tremendous local appeal in Maryland and the greater Washington area. He also has great national appeal." Former San Diego Padre Tony Gwynn, another likely inductee, "transcended the game for two decades," he said. If power-hitters Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco, who will be on the eligibility list for the first time, are also chosen next January, the sky's the limit. (Both men, however, were implicated in steroids scandals, so their election is in doubt.) Idelson estimated the crowd could top 50,000, ranking it up there with the attendance record set in 1999 when Nolan Ryan, George Brett and Orlando Cepeda were among seven inductees. The previous record-setting year was 1995 -- Mike Schmidt brought out a huge Philly crowd, Idelson said. "The phones ringing off the hook," said Polly Renckens, Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce executive director. "It's going to be a huge year." Every room in the Cooperstown area that can be reserved has been reserved, she said. Others don't take reservations for a while yet. In 1999, Dreams Park was only hosting 30 teams a summer; now that the number is closer to 100, many more local rooms are already spoken for, adding to the challenge, according to Renckens. She said people are already being referred to Albany, Syracuse, Utica and Binghamton. In Albany, the Marriott and the Desmond Americana are already booked. The chamber is working on some additional strategies to ensure no fan is disappointed, she said, and more on those strategies will forthcoming later. "We're getting a lot of calls for people looking for local lodging who are unable to find it," said Deb Taylor, director of the Otsego County Tourism Department,echoing Renckens. "Frankly, I'm a little concerned about that." That said, she and Renckens are collaborating to see what might be done to ease the crunch. "This is a perfect opportunity for us as a community to put our best face forward to a huge public," she said. Idelson said planning for next year began Aug. 1, the day after Induction Weekend 2006 ended. "Every year you look at induction differently," he said. "You have the foot print, but you adjust." The bus count is "a barometer," he said. In 1995, for instance, there were 217 buses. "Once or twice a decade you catch lightning in a bottle," Idelson said, "and have players earn election who have widespread appeal, or incredible local interest." Nonetheless, there are variables. Weather and gas prices, for instance, can depress crowds. "This is going to be an evolving story," said Renckens. "We won't have our heads in the sand; we'll be looking down the road."  Fly Creek Cider Mill Tantalizes FLY CREEK Anthony Gentile of Wyckoff, N.J., and Tony Jr. were sampling the apple cranberry salsa the other morning at the Fly Creek Cider Mill. It was 10:30 a.m., and already there must have been 15-20 people milling around the store, sampling a variety of goodies. Are there places like this in Wyckoff? "In the mall," said Tony Jr. "Not a place like THIS," said the father. There was a place like THIS, Tice's Farm, near the family's New Jersey home, but it closed down 10 years ago, Anthony said, and it's missed. Although not in its present form, THIS has been around for 150 years, a milestone that will be celebrated from 6:30 to 10 p.m. this coming Wednesday, Aug. 16. The mill will be rededicated, there will be food and country music by the Night Riders, and all of the $10 fee will benefit Friends of Bassett Hospital’s fundraising drive for a new Mobile Cancer Screening Coach. (Children 12 and under get in free.) Now operated by a second-generation of Michaelses, Bill and wife Brenda, THIS goes back to entrepreneur Hosea Williams, who in 1866 centralized cider making by harnessing Fly Creek's waters to power a Boomer & Boschert hydraulic press and grinder. Instead of pressing their own apples, farmers could now bring apples from their own trees, watch the novel machinery, picnic by the pond, then draw off three gallons for every bushel delivered. In their cellars back home, they turned the sweet liquid into hard cider or apple wine. As time went on, Williams added a woodworking shop that made fancy scroll work evident on many local homes of that vintage. In the winter, he harvested ice from the pond, preserving it for sale the following summer. The cider mill's second owner, Linn Kane, took over as the 20th century dawned, and bought a two-cylinder gas-operated Waterloo Boy to grind the apples, making his operation less dependent on water power. Kane continued to innovated and the mill flourished until Prohibition, when hard-cider was outlawed. When Prohibition ended, beer -- produced far less expensively -- pushed cider aside. But Kane continued pressing apples until his mill was the only one left along Fly Creek. He closed it in the 1950s and it seemed destined to fade away. Then, in 1962, a couple of newlyweds from Cooperstown, Charlie and Barbara Michaels, bought the former miller's home that faces County Route 26. Charlie's grandfather had founded Michaels' Market in Cooperstown, his father had carried on the family business, but he wanted something else. The mill was ideal. Charlie planted the mill's first apple trees, the restarted the press. Barbara began selling artware and flower arrangements on the second floor. The couple then sold doughnuts and apple bread, then honey and maple syrup. It's a tradition that continues do this day, adding one product at a time, then another, then another... As Bill Michaels shows you around the property, he finds himself saying "this used to be ..." All the various building are now part of a sizeable establishment. Its sales are 60 percent food, 30 percent hardware (more and more, food-related hardware), and 10 percent food service. The ramp where farmers used to roll barrels into the mill is now part of the main store. A tool shed behind the main mill is now the food-vending area. One side of the pond is now lined by a boardwalk. Next year, a pavilion is planned. As Bill sits down to talk about his business, a duck quacks behind him and swans float serenely in the distance. "I grew up here and I've done every aspect of production," says the 40-ish red-head. "And it still seems like I do every aspect of production." Bill went to hospitality school at RIT and returned home to go into business for himself. He ran the Tunnicliff Inn on Pioneer Street for two years in the late '80s, then the Lakeview Motel from 1992 to 1998, when he rejoined his parents. Brenda, a graduate of Pratt Institute, had a graphics business -- in the early days of computer graphics, she had a studio above the Doubleday Cafe. She was soon helping out the elder Michaelses with newsletters and advertising and, soon after that, she and Bill married. (They now have two young children.) In 2000, about the time the young couple bought the business from the parents, Dreams Park's inexorable expansion allowed the mill to stay open during the summer. Previously, it had only operated during cider season. Today, the owners shut it down Christmas Day and reopen it May 1. Before Dreams Park, people came to see the National Baseball Hall of Fame or one of the museums and left the next day. Dreams Park keeps families in the area for a week, and after two or three days they discover what Bill calls "tier two attractions" like the cider mill. "I couldn't be open in the summer without Dreams Park," he said. Another boost came when Bill discovered the North American Farmers Direct Marketing Association, a group of folks who run places much like the cider mill. Before the annual convention -- most recently, in Vancouver -- attendees spend three days touring establishments like theirs, sampling wares and identifying products that would be good fits back home. This has allowed the cider mill to expand its offerings widely. On one shelf, under the "Fly Creek Cider Mill" label, there's a habanero garlic relish. On another, there's Jim Atwell's "From Fly Creek: Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country." There's a plate bearing "Recipe for a Happy Home"; it starts, "Begin with love and lots of caring." There's fudge. There are Yankee Candles. There are syrups and honey. The biggest sellers, said Bill, are the apple salsas the Gentiles were sampling -- hot, mild and apple cranberry; then jams and jellies; then the Vidalia Onion line. During Wednesday's ceremonies, the latest product will be unveiled: "cave-aged" sharp cheddar, provided by McAdam Cheese of Heuvelton and aged in Howe's Caverns near Cobleskill. Some 1,200 pounds will be available, sold only in Fly Creek and the Howe's Caverns gift shop. The Michaelses grow six acres of apple trees, 12,000 of them, producing 800 to 1,000 bushels a year, but that's only about 5 percent of their supply; they get the rest from Columbia County. That may seem like a lot of apples, but in cider manufacturing "we're a drop in the bucket," said Bill. The mill produces 20,000 gallons a year, but freezes 5,000 gallons to serve to customers over the following summer. Listening to Bill, he gets most animated when talking about, not the past, but the future. (The facts about the mill's history came, not from him, but from a handout prepared for the 150th celebration.) Bill and Brenda were "early adapters," launching their first Web site in 2001, but they discovered it was time consuming and, at the time, generated little business, so they dropped it. Next Wednesday, they will launch a next-generation Web site, allowing customers who have walked out of the store with a case of apple cranberry salsa under their arms to replenish their supply from afar. COOPERSTOWN The $5 million in capitol projects proposed by the Cooperstown Central school board is significant as much for what it leaves out as what it includes. Gone are all investments related to program improvement: Renovations to maximize use of computers in science labs and more space for art and instrumental instruction at the middle/high school, and the larger media center at the elementary school. The proposed capital project, which would probably go to referendum early next year, is focused on "improvements for health, safety and energy efficiency," said Superintendent of Schools Mary Jo McPhail. "The numbers may change," she added. Of the total, $2 million would be spent on the high school, $2.4 million on the elementary school, and $724,400 on the bus garage, for a total of $5,198,000. Specific items, as approved by the school board at a work session Tuesday, Aug. 1, range from replacing windows and doors to kitchen/serving modifications at the middle/high school, to upgrading boilers and installing a two-stop elevator for handicapped students in the elementary school. School board President Anthony C. Scalici said many of the improvements are focused on energy efficiency -- for instance, sensors that would ensure when rooms are vacant, the temperature would be allowed to drop. He estimated as much as $15,000 is savings in energy costs could be realized; more, if prices continue to rise. The scaled-back proposal came eight months after last December's defeat of a $19 million bond issue, which included $5 million for a new bus garage; that project was the most severely scaled-back in this new round. "We feel very good about the proposed project going out," said McPhail, "but we still are faced with a major dilemma as a school distirct and a community: We need to communicate about the program improvements we want to make available to our students in the 21st century. We do a good job, but we could do a much better job." The science lab proposals grew out of changes in the field in the past 30 years, primarily computerization, since the middle/high school was built. The music and art proposals resulted from space challenges. "Right now," said High School Principal Gary Kuch of the science proposals, "the computers are there, but they are separate." The idea would be to develop "state of the art" facilities such as "smart tablets" that double as "white boards" -- blackboards that are white -- and entry points to the Internet. Where digital cameras are available, teachers can demonstrate experiments so they can be seen throughout the classroom; now, students in the back sometimes miss the details. There's also a shortage of space, said Kuch. The higher-end microscopes helpful in teacher Advance Placement chemistry whould be nice to have, but "if we had it, we don't have a place to put it." Further, a science student would have a computer close at hand as he or she works on an experiment. All of this advanced equipment would not be acquired at once, but the idea is "making the room compatible for that sort of thing," the principal said. The music program is something of a victim of its success. Salvatore Salvaggio, who runs the program, said he had 65 choir students in all four grades when he joined the district 17 years ago. Today, he has 146, and has broken them into two choruses, for the two upper grades and two lower grades. "This is the largest group of choral students we've had," he said. The choral room, equipped with risers, has a capacity for 45 students; as many as 90 have been packed in there, Salvatore said. Instrumental instruction is no different: students practice in the halls; sometimes, sections the band, brass blaring, practice in the hall as well. The proposed renovations would have created practice rooms, according to the teacher. But that's not to be, at least for now. Asked if the school board was disappointed with the referendum results, Scalici said "to some degree. We have no argument whatsoever about people's financial concerns. Our interest was to create dialogue to the public, but it never really happened like that. "People were so taken back by the cost of what was being proposed that it just shut everything down," he said. McPhail said, "The clear message the board received from the most recent capital project defeat was that there appeared to be a strong support for health and safety items. There definitely were pockets of support for the various program aspects; but we did not get an impression of overall support." Given the narrower range of the capital program, Scalici said the school board may have to depend more on "Greatness in Our Sights," which has been moving along a parallel track, to push innovation in the classroom. That initiative will be officially launched at 3:15 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 13. "Those are all non-cost plans," said Scalici. "Not zero cost, but for the most part ways to innovate within the classroom walls. We're really hoping to get some interesting program improvements going along those lines." He pointed out the "Greatness" initiative is "essentially a public participation effort; not something being directed by the administration." | 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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