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 In the News This Week -- Dec. 29, 2006 |
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  Cherry Valley Supervisor Guided Town Through Dangers To A New Consensus By JIM KEVLIN CHERRY VALLEY Tom Garretson always liked people. But for the first 35 years of his life, he didn’t see many of them. “On the farm you hardly see anyone at all,” said the tall, lanky Cherry Valley town supervisor, “except your family.” In 2006, it was quite the opposite, as he presided at packed meeting after packed meeting and debate raged over Reunion Power’s 24-turbine wind farm proposed for East Hill. Given that he liked people, Garretson began the year – his first as supervisor, succeeding 38-year veterans Bob Loucks Jr., his father-in-law – wanting to make everybody happy. Over the course of the year he discovered “at the end of the day, you might not make anybody happy.” Having reached that conclusion, he realized there was no alternative to listening, thinking, reflecting, trying to keep an open mind but, in the end, coming to his own conclusion. For safely ferrying his divided rural community from one threatened by runaway industrial wind-turbine development to one that is planning and in control of its future, and by doing so with patience, courtesy and growing wisdom, Tom Garretson was selected as The Freeman’s Journal “Citizen of 2006,” which will now be an annual designation. Two letters to the editor bookend the development of Garretson’s thinking during the year. In April, he declared his support for alternative energy, argued Cherry Valley should play a role in addressing a national crisis, and concluded, “As for the advocacy groups, you should either get in line with the rest of the country or you should get out of the way, because this country has a problem and we need to fix it.” He still supports the concept of wind power, but a very different concept. “We could create a project that would generate the amount of energy that this town uses, while generating the amount of revenue that this town needs,” he wrote in a letter published in November. “It would be our project, with laws developed by our town, with our town’s vision in mind. As a town and as a community, we could start to be proactive with our ideas instead of being reactive to someone else’s.” Summer of Discontent That first letter, it turns out, signalled the beginning of Garretson’s summer of discontent, as he and his wife Amy sought to juggle his municipal duties with planning for oldest daughter Celia’s wedding. In the midst of it all, the Garretsons were given a surprise 25th anniversary party. In June, Garretson and other officials and townspeople took a bus trip sponsored by Reunion to the Town of Fenner, Madison County, where 20 wind turbines had been built in 2001. The tour had the opposite effect to what Reunion hoped. Garretson found Fenner flat, undistinguished, consisting of failing dairy farms, with none of Cherry Valley’s dramatic hills and valleys, long views, varied population and rich history. Is what’s right for Fenner right for Cherry Valley? the supervisor began to ask himself. At the July 13 town board meeting, council chambers in the town barn were packed to overflowing and pro-turbine demonstrators – many of whom Garretson had known for years – were carrying placards and chanting outside. The heat was stifling. “Tom Garretson kept his cool through the whole thing,” said Bren Miosek, The Freeman’s Journal managing editor, who covered the meeting. But Garretson, who had served on town board for eight years before succeeding Loucks, wasn’t sure how much he could stand. “Until you actually are in the job,” Amy said, “you don’t know what it entails – the responsibility, the time, the effort.” As Garretson shifted from someone who was considered supportive of a “Reunion-size project” to trying to find another way, he took criticism from all sides. “You can’t take it personally,” he said. Amy added, “but you do take it personally at first.” Howls of Protest On the last evening in July, the town trucks were removed and folding chairs set up to accommodate more than 200 people in the bays; another 50 stood outside. With Garretson enforcing a three-minute-per-comment rule, almost 100 citizens spoke, three-quarters in favor of a 12-month moratorium that would delay all major commercial development, enough time to allow the town Planning Board to complete and adopt a Comprehensive Master Plan. One of several emotional highpoints of the evening came when Garretson’s middle daughter, Bethany, testified against the moratorium, saying “we can’t live in the past.” At the evening’s end, to howls from the crowd, Garretson’s motion to adopt the moratorium failed for lack of a second from either of the two other councilmen, Fabian Bressett III and Jim Johnson. It was a rookie mistake, Garretson acknowledged later. He vowed never to call a vote again until he was sure of the outcome, and conclusion that would serve him well through the rest of the year, through a three-month moratorium and 45-day extension as he shepherded the toughest wind ordinance in New York State into law. It prohibits turbines within 2,000 feet of a dwelling, and within 1,200 feet of a property line, and Reunion Vice President David Little said it makes it impossible for his company’s plans to go forward. Town Takes Control “The day after the ordinance passed,” Garretson said, “was the first day the town was acting in control of its destiny. Before, it was going to be the developers.” “You couldn’t help but notice Tom’s change of opinion,” said Walter Buist, a town Planning Board member who helped draft the ordinance. “Since, he’s been consistent and courageous in his position that we should be in control of the process. He was willing to take the political risk.” The evening of the vote was also Bressett’s last board meeting after 33 years. He, Johnson and Garretson “selected” – a sitting town board member can’t vote on his successor – Mark Cornwell, who was born the year Bressett joined the town board, to replace him. A fisheries and wildlife instructor at SUNY Cobleskill, he has spoken out against Reunion at various points. Ten years ago, or 20, certainly 30, who would have predicted Tom Garretson’s “year of transformation”? He was born in Newton, N.J., where his father Edward – everyone knows him as “Bud” – farmed, but was looking for a place of his own which would have two features: A decent barn and a nice house “for mom,” the son remembered. It took years of scouring Pennsylvania, upstate New York and a handful of other states, but Bud Garretson finally discovered the place on Mill Road, and moved his family – mom Beverly, and sons Bill, Jim, Tom and David – to Cherry Valley. Tom was 11 at the time. Asked to recall an anecdote about Tom, his mother diplomatically said, “they were all good boys” and left it at that. Dad put his sons to work as soon as they were able. “He couldn’t really afford to pay us a lot,” recalled Tom. “But if we needed a snowmobile in the winter or a motorcyle in the summer, one would be there.” Cherry Valley High School was about the same size at Newton’s, so he soon felt at home. On graduating in 1977, he went into the family farm, joining his dad and older brother Jim, and the farm expanded to 350 Holsteins, including 160 milkers. A dozen years of toil followed, from 3:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., seven days a week. “We basically lived in the barn,” said brother Jim, who focused on the dairying while his brother focused on the crops, maintained the machinery and kept the books. Asked to describe his brother in one word, Jim said “perfectionist. The shop was basically his doing. Everything was in its place.” Across a Crowded Room One evening in 1979, during the Tryon’s heyday as a community gathering place for all ages, he ran into a young woman who had been a year behind him in school, Amy Loucks, who was studying nursing at Herkimer Community College. They chatted and he asked her out, “thinking that I’d be shut down,” he said during an interview in the dining room of the family’s old Victorian farmhouse, looking south where the terrain rises up to Route 20, with Amy, Bethany and Mallory, 12, chiming in from time to time. That first date was a low-key outing. He took her up to Herkimer to visit her college roommate. Tom and Amy rib each other about that meeting, but then he gets serious. “We knew,” he said. “We knew.” And Amy then adds, “It was love at first sight.” The two married in 1981. Celia was born three years later and when Bethany came along two years after that, the young couple reached a decision. “I knew I wasn’t going to have enough time for the girls,” he said. So the farm went up for sale, although a transaction wasn’t completed until the early ‘90s. Farming was all he knew, so the change was scary, but it worked out. While Tom joined Bassett Healthcare, where he served in various roles before joining The Farmers’ Museum accounting department in 2005. This gave the Garretsons a life. Amy went back to college for her Bachelor of Science; she is now school nurse at Cherry Valley-Springfield Central School. The two coached girls soccer together, she as head coach, he as assistant. And Tom’s father-in-law invited him to join the town board. Into Town Politics Bob Loucks had a reputation for running a tight ship, and things were on a pretty even keel. “The first few years,” said Garretson, “I don’t remember any issues at all. You introduced the bills and passed them. Once in a while, you had to buy a truck.” Things began to change after Global Wind Energy discovered windy Cape Wyckoff, across County Highway 31 from CV-S Central. Ten people began to show up at meetings; then 15. When that increased to 40-50 after Reunion took over Global Wind’s claim (it later shifted its sights to East Hill, on the town’s north end), “you knew something was going on.” And how. Regardless of the stresses and strains, Garretson is the recipient of much good will, even among those who may disagree with him. Bob Loucks, while skirting questions about what he would have done differently, focuses on his son-in-law’s personal attributes as “a very good father, a very good, religious man” who’s “raised three wonderful girls.” The Garretsons had breakfast with the Loucks side of the family Christmas Day, then hosted the other Garretsons in the afternoon. There are just some things they’ve agreed not to talk about. Into the Future Religion played a more important role than ever for him this year, said Garretson, who is Episcopalian. “You can’t do it alone,” he said. “There are days when you’re basically alone.” During what Amy calls “the perfect storm” of July, “we really didn’t think I’d be running next year.” But bringing this year’s trials to a conclusion was “a challenge. I always like challenges.” For now, Garretson is hoping to further explore the idea of harnessing wind power on a small scale for the benefit of the community. Down the road, who knows? He didn’t rule out further political ambitions.  The End Was Near – Almost: When Aaron Didn’t Show, Fans Furious
The late Alex Pompez, the great scout for the New York and San Francisco Giants who died in 1974 at age 83, was among those inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame this past summer. Before Pomp turned to scouting for the Giants, he owned the New York Cubans in the old Negro National League, and before that he ran the biggest numbers game in Harlem, which is how he got the money to own the New York Cubans. I was not around for the Hall ceremonies, but I read later that no relative could be found to attend. That was surprising because, as Pomp once proudly told me, he was the uncle of U.S. Sen. Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, long retired and alive at 87 in Florida. I first met Pomp under unusual circumstances in the fall of 1959 when I was based in San Francisco as Sports Illustrated’s West Coast correspondent with my territory, so I was told, extending east to the Jersey side of the Hudson River. The editors in New York had given me approval to do an in-depth study of black – Negro was the term then – players in the National and American Leagues. Jackie Robinson had to contend with a lot when he broke the color line with the Brooklyn Dodger in 1947, and now, a dozen years afterwards, I wanted to discover what life was like for his 57 successors. Thanks to Jim Brosnan, a friend who pitched for Cincinnati, learned that Pompez was going to lead a black team playing a team of white major leaguers on a barnstorming tour through Mexico. The players were to include Bill White, the Cardinal first baseman (and future Yankee announcer and president of the National League), Don Newcombe, John Roseboro, Bob Gibson, Bobby Boyd, Connie Johnson, Bennie Daniels and Henry Aaron. say “were to include” because Aaron didn’t make it to Mexico for a reason never made clear to me. The only white player remember was Harmon Killibrew. In those days of no-free agency and low salaries, barnstorming was a way to make money in the off season, and arranged to meet up with Pompez and his team at their first stop before a game in Monterrey. By chance arrived at the hotel first. I picked up a book, sat down in the lobby, began to read, and dozed off, only to awaken to see two players shooting pool at a table nearby. They were jokingly calling one another names that, soon learned, no white should hear, but naively stood up and cheerfully announced my presence in English. They all but dropped their cues in embarrassment and silently disappeared from the lobby. That night after the game, boarded the black team bus for the next town and sat down next to Bill White who greeted me with a smile and said, “Well, I’ll get to sleep tonight.” “Why?” asked. “Because you’re on board,” he replied. White was right. All was quiet, he got to sleep, and for the next couple of days most of the players had little or nothing to say when sought to interview them. That was to change dramatically, but fortunately Pomp talked readily. A well-traveled man-of-the-world born in Florida to Cuban-American parents, he was fluent in English and Spanish and had an incredible eye for talent. Thanks to him, 10 of the 37 players on San Francisco’s winter roster were black, the most of any team. And what players! And at what bargain prices, even back then. He got Willie Mays for $10,000, Willie Kirkland for $2,000 and Willie McCovey for $500. Pomp was also in charge of finding Latin players, and among those he found were Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal, and the three Rojas brothers who became known as the Alous because Americans didn’t understand the Spanish practice of putting their mother’s maiden name, Alou, in this instance, last and their father’s, Rojas, in the middle. His hardest task was explaining the color line in the segregated South to Latin blacks. “When they first come here, they don’t like it,” he said. “Some boys cry and want to go home. But after they stay and make big money, they accept things as they are. My main thing is to help them. They can’t change the laws.” None of the barnstorming players had their names on the back of their uniforms – not the custom at the time – and none of the fans noticed Aaron’s absence until we arrived in San Luis Potosi, 6,000 feet up in the central highlands. The advance posters long put up had Aaron’s name in big letters, and the ball park was jammed. Whether there were 6,000 fans, 8,000 fans, 10,000 fans, or whatever, know not because we never got the time to check the attendance. Shortly before the game began, joined Bennie Daniels, not pitching that day, in the stands about a dozen rows behind the first base dugout with Pomp and the team. The first call for Aaron started in the third inning, and so far no Aaron had stepped up to the plate. “Aaron! Aaron! Aaron!” went the cry growing more frequent and louder and louder. There was no way to beam Aaron up from wherever he was even if we knew. He was a no show in San Luis Potosi. By the start of the fourth the crowd was turning very nasty. Fans spotted Daniels and me, and there were shouts of “Cafe con leche!” and soon the “n” word with more to follow. don’t know if the players on the field heard it, but I definitely knew it was time to say adios to San Luis Potosi, the very town where Francisco Madero ignited the fiery Revolution of 1910 with assists from Pancho Villa in the north and Zapata in the south. “Let’s go down to the dugout,” said to Bennie. There told Pomp, “It’s bad, and it’s only going to get worse. We’ve got to get out of here fast. These people are going to riot. Send word over to Killibrew that when the half inning is over we all run for the buses.” The half inning over, we all suddenly broke for the buses in deep center field near the open gate through which we’d entered. There was seemingly a stunned silence followed by a seismic roar from the stands, and fans poured out in pursuit. The white bus took off immediately. The terrified driver of our bus couldn’t get it started. The mob was stampeding closer. The scene forever emblazoned in my mind is Newcombe handing out bats so we could defend ourselves, and exclaimed to myself, “Jesus Christ!” – this was prayer, not blasphemy – “going to die in baseball’s Alamo!” A bundle of surging arms were trying to rock the bus, ready to turn it over when more arrived. Suddenly, the bus started, and we tore out through the gate and onto the road. Don’t think we stopped for the next hundred miles. After the mob scene, was accepted, and the players opened up. began to learn many things, such as that during the regular season they, American blacks, “hung kind of close,” apart from Latin blacks, and had their own leaders on different clubs: for instance, George Crowe on the Cardinals, Bill Bruton on the Braves, and Brook Lawrence on the Reds, with Bill White foreseen, rightly so, destined to become a “big man” after a couple of more years. They had their own slang, such as “gray boys” and “blowhair boys” for whites because “when the wind blows, your hair blows and mine doesn’t,” and “club member” for another black. A “hogcutter” was a black who messed up saying or doing something he shouldn’t have. Does Newcombe cut a hog? The answer, to loud laughter, “King-size!” What did they think of the white team they were playing in Mexico? “We’ve got a better team, even though we may take it a little easy. And when we’ve got a big crowd, we’ll beat them.” They refused to let young Vada Pinson of the Reds join the team because he didn’t know to stop hustling. During the season, Pinson sprinted around the bases after hitting a homer, only to be met by Frank Robinson who said, “Listen, kid, you better just stick to singles and leave those long balls to us cats who can act them out.” And after the tour was over was to learn a great deal more when crossed the country to interview players at home. For his part, before the barnstorming ended with a game in Mexico City, Pomp recalled his days in the Negro National League. One of the stars on his team was Minnie but he had not been easy to get. Pomp said that he had to use a brujo, a witch doctor in Havana, to sign him. But the brujo was well worth it, given the astonishing result. “was in Havana, and wanted to sign Minoso,” he began. “But he wouldn’t sign. He wouldn’t even talk to me. Then heard about this hoodoo man, this brujo. He shined shoes in Havana. was told to see him. So the first day I went there I say nothing. have him shine my shoes, then give him a half dollar tip and go away. The next day went back and do the same thing. The third day he says, `Don’t know you?’ said, `Maybe. My picture’s in the paper. I’m Pompez of the New York Cubans.’ “He asks me, `What are you doing in Havana?’ tell him want to sign Minoso, but he won’t sign. ask the brujo, `Do you know Minoso?’ He laughs, ha, ha, ha, like he’s going to fall down and says, `Do know Minoso!’” “ask, `Can you get Minoso to come to the United States to play ball?’ He says, `Yes.’ ask, `How do you know that?’ And he laughs again, and he says, `If no go with you, his leg be broken!’ “tell him, `Okay, you get Minoso, and will bring you to the United States the year after next as coach.’ He says okay, and tell him where will be the next night so Minoso can sign the contract. “Sure enough, right at 6 o’clock, there’s a knock on the door. Minoso. He doesn’t say a word. give him the pen, and he signs to play with the New York Cubans. That’s it. Later sold him to Cleveland for $7,500. “The next year” – and here Pomp’s voice became hushed – “bring the brujo to the United States as a coach. give him a uniform. He is now my coach. Now in all my years in the Negro National League have never won a pennant. The brujo comes up to me and he says, `Hey, Pompez, is it true that you have never won the pennant?’ say, `That’s right. In all these years I’ve never won the pennant’ You know what? The brujo, he looks at me, and he says, `Don’t worry, Pompez. This year you win the pennant.’ And you know what? won the pennant! won the pennant!” By BREN MIOSEK COOPERSTOWN Talk to people about green Christmases like this one, and soon they’re talking about white ones. “We had plenty of white Christmases back in the ’60s and ’70s, but I don’t recall too many green ones around here,” said former Cooperstown Postmaster Roger Smith as he wrapped up another busy day at Spurbeck’s Grocery. “I can remember two or three from back then, but that’s about it. We usually had lots of snow.” “I can remember a lot of white Christmases, but I can’t remember the last green one,” said Bill Waller of Cooperstown. “The bad thing about a green Christmas is that it never really seems like Christmas when there isn’t any snow.” “It seems like the winters have been milder during the past few years,” said Village Historian Hugh MacDougall. “But I can remember one Christmas in particular where I had to hire a truck to remove some of the snow in front of my house. Although the lack of snow on Christmas Day 2006 may have disappointed a few children with no need for snow pants, mittens, hats or boots, what a difference four years make. According to the National Weather Service, the towns around Otsego Lake received a record-breaking 25-plus inches of powder over the course of two days just four years ago - Dec. 24-25, 2002 – closing highways and bringing most everything to a halt. Prior to 2002, the record – 2 feet – fell on Christmas Eve 1978. Before that, the record was 11 inches that fell silently on the village on Christmas Day 1915. Smith recalled a Christmas when his wife Dorothy’s parents, Joe and Martha Vidosik, came to visit for the holidays. “We had just moved here,” he said, “and they were from Arizona. It snowed so much that Christmas, they couldn’t leave. They got snowed in.” It wasn’t unusual to have to dig through the front lawn just to get to the front door, MacDougall recalled. “During the 1990’s we received lots of snow around Christmas time,” added his wife, Eleanor. “The trees always look so beautiful when they’re covered in snow.” If you purchased a sled, skis, or ski pass for winter recreation purposes, you might not want to head for the customer service return window just yet. As of Wednesday evening, Dec. 27, snow was falling in Otsego County and more was expect through the end of the week. “The thing that bothers me the most about a green Christmas is that its like waiting for the other shoe to drop,” said Smith. “Anyone who has lived here long enough knows exactly what I’m talking about. Either way, we’re going to pay for it in the end.”  Local Woman ‘Guiding Light’ In Gulf Coast
By CHAD WELCH COOPERSTOWN There is a destiny that makes us brothers; None goes his way alone; All that we send into the lives of others, comes back into our own.” These words by poet Edwin Markham were the original motto of the television drama “Guiding Light,” created by Irna Phillips for the show’s radio debut in 1937. These same words will serve as the mission statement for a year-long partnership between the soap opera and the Hands On Network of volunteers in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the show. The effort will be spearheaded by 1986 Cooperstown Central graduate, Jan Conklin, coordinating producer for the longest-running show in broadcast history. “No other television show has accomplished this milestone,” said Conklin of the show’s anniversary. She has worked on the crew of “Guiding Light” since 1996 and is elated about the experiences that await her in 2007, as she will join the cast of 30 and 50 volunteers to rebuild homes in the Gulf Coast devastated by Hurricane Katrina. In her usual role, Conklin spends 10-12 hour days watching tape and working with directors, actors, make-up artists and stage crew to perfect the executive producer’s vision for the final product that is the show. Starting in January, from the 22nd through the 26th, however, Conklin and crew will leave the CBS broadcast center in New York City, and will work on site in the Gulf Coast, filming as they rebuild three homes over the course of a week. Jan will then spend the next few weeks in an edit suite looking at the footage they gathered to put together the show that will air on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14. “Guiding Light” and Hands on Network, a non-profit network of 64 volunteer organizations and a half-million volunteers, recently announced the project as a way to celebrate the show’s 70th anniversary, and further their joint message of community and the brotherhood of man. The task is a major undertaking for a show that produces 250 episodes per year, but it is a great way to celebrate and connect with the show’s roots. “I am thrilled and honored to be working on a show with such history, and extremely excited about this year long project,” stated Conklin. After graduating from Cooperstown Central School, Jan attended Marymount College in Tarrytown, receiving a B.A. in communications and drama in 1990. From there, she moved to London, working and traveling before returning to Cooperstown in 1994. At that time, she and husband Ritchie Coster lived and worked in Cooperstown, at Haggerty Ace Hardware and Doubleday Café respectively, until they moved to Manhattan, where Jan joined “Guiding Light” and Ritchie went to work as an actor; he has since appeared in several films. Conklin celebrated her 20th high school reunion this year, and she and Ritchie often return to their vacation home. From the Gulf Coast, the cast and crew will continue on their year-long journey, visiting cities all over the country piloting charity projects with the help of fans and volunteers, working and taping their accomplishments along the way. For more information about “Guiding Light’s” anniversary goodwill tour, and a calendar of events for their visit www.findyourlight. com and www.handsonnetwork.org, and tune into the broadcast Feb. 14, on CBS.  COOPERSTOWN On a clear day, you can see the Sleeping Lion from the fourth floor of the Key Bank building, at least when the leaves are off the trees. That’s not half of it. To the east is a charming view of Main Street, to the west the Otesaga and, to the south, a birds-eye view of Doubleday Field. It seems like an ideal setting for Shane Newell’s plans. The bank building’s new owner and president of Field View Development, surveys the fourth floor’s interior with satisfaction. It’s all concrete and steel, all open. The only asbestos in the building is in the furnace room in the basement, and its enclosed. He anticipates he can redevelop the 39,000 square feet into five luxury condos for something in the $1 million range. He may try to market them as one-week timeshares, but is not averse to marketing them to, say, a baseball player who might want to scoot up to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on a whim, or have a nice perch during Induction Weekend. Because of the building’s solidity and open space, it’s hard not to let the imagination soar. Maybe the skylights could be uncovered. Maybe something could be done on the roof. The freight elevator that opens up onto Pioneer Alley would be enclosed in an atrium and become the main entrance to the condos. Half of the third floor – the other half is occupied by offices with long-term leases – would be a common area, with a fitness center, a home theater, a small office and a laundry room. “This project is a big one for me,” said Newell. “I want to make sure I’m doing it right.” The one stumbling block continues to be parking. To win village approval, he needs five parking spaces, one for each unit. Given the nature of the development, he would like two – 10 in all – and would be able to fit them into the two handicapped spaces on the west side of the building, near the front of Doubleday parking lot. He owns the walkway that runs behind the building, connecting Pioneer Alley with the Doubleday lot, and would be glad to give that to the village in exchange. The handicapped parking, he points out, would probably be more convenient closer to Doubleday Field’s entrance anyhow. Newell, who is 47 and, with his wife Diane, the parent of two boys, Vincent, 18, a student at Skidmore College, and Jonathan, 16, and a daughter, Nicole, 15, developed his entrepreneurial yen via the Culinary Institute of America. While he took management courses there, it’s harder for a business manager to get a stake in a restaurant. “They do make chefs partners,” he said, and soon he was. Before long, he was involved in four restaurants, including Bruno’s Woodfired Pizza in Saratoga Springs, across from the track, and The Grist Mill in Warrensburg, near Lake George. When his long-time business partner died of leukemia at age 49, Newell reexamined his hectic life. He sold his businesses and went into corporate work, eventually managing Key Bank’s properties. The bank had been seeking to get out of the building-managing business; Newell saw the opportunity and purchase 103 Main St. Key Bank maintains a long-term lease on the ground floor. The “fire-proof” building was erected in 1903 for Arthur H. Crist Publishing Co., and had to be sturdy enough to bear the weight of printing presses. By 1910, however, the building had been sold, and passed from bank to bank until entering Key’s hands. If all goes well, Newell hopes to be marketing the units by Induction Weekend 2008.  COOPERSTOWN I know you usually don’t clean out the trash baskets until the afternoon,” Otsego County Sheriff Donald Mundy, in a voice of command, was telling a deputy in the control room at the county Correctional Facility the other morning. “But would you go ahead and do it now?” Sheriff Mundy, who is retiring Sunday, Dec. 31, after 13 years as Otsego County’s chief law-enforcement officer, was a Navy man, and that spit-and-polish culture is reflected today in the ship-shape nature of his operation. The floors in the jail are polished to a high sheen. The signs of wear in the 20-year-old facility are few. The deputies, who salute and address their boss as “sheriff” or “sir,” are pressed and starched, hair and mustaches neatly trimmed. As of Monday, Jan. 1, Sheriff Mundy will be a private citizen for the first time since Jan. 10, 1963, when he reported to the Sidney Barracks of state police. (Private citizen, but still working: He will be joining FEMA’s Project Recovery, interviewing flood-aid applicants two days a week. His undersheriff, Bruce Carroll, is also retiring; the two worked together in the state police.) He had gotten the call on a Friday, Jan. 7, 1963, while he was working at Grand Island, near Buffalo. He packed up his family. In a white out, he drove the truck and his wife Ruth drove the car down to his family’s home in Plymouth, Pa., (where he was raised and his father was police chief), and was ready for work by Monday. He never looked back. He served out of Sidney, assigned to Waterloo and North Syracuse. Then in C Troop, which extended all the way to Kingston, serving in Ferndale and Ellenville. In those days, troopers lived at the barracks, visiting their families – Mundy’s soon moved to Oneonta – on days off. The workday was supposedly 8 to 8 – 12 hours – but 15-16 hours was more the norm. The sheriff remembers inching through Monticello in the Catskills’ heyday, two miles an hour, the sidewalks so thick with people they could barely move. But the tourism tide went out, hotels and resorts started burning, and Mundy found himself developing quite a bit of expertise in arson investigations. And, as the Catskills became less busy, “bodies started showing up.” It was a dumping ground for ne’er-do-wells from New York City looking for a convenient place to get rid of a corpse. Locally, his assignments had him in Maryland and Milford – where he got to know many of the Otsego County people who would later be his supporters when he got into politics – and “over the hill to Delaware County.” It was near East Worcester that he happened on one of his most memorable cases. He’d pulled off the side of Route 7 to do some paperwork when a young man, looking out of place, came along the shoulder. Trooper Mundy asked to look at some identification, but he couldn’t made contact with the headquarters so, checking him out as well as he could, he let him go. Two days later, a body was found at a hotel in East Worcester. The man had been hit on the head with a stool. Come to find out, Mundy’s spot check resulted in the lead. He and two investigators spent a couple of days in Queens, tracking the suspect down. Mundy retired for the first time in 1985, but not for long. He spent four years conducting investigations for lawyers, then Sheriff Martin Ralph asked him to join him as undersheriff. Four years later, Ralph died and Mundy found himself in the position of acting sheriff. Later that year – 1994 – he ran and was elected to the office. In 13 years, he’s accomplished a lot – for instance, he’s leaving his successor, newly elected Sheriff Richard J. Devlin Jr., with a new $450,000, 48-camera security system in the jail – but two accomplishments stand out. First, road patrols. There were only two when he succeeded Ralph, covering 24 townships, 1,013 square miles. Today, he has nine patrol officers, plus a sergeant and an investigator. Second, the police academy. The county had to train its prospective deputies in other counties, a costly undertaking, so Mundy started his own program. At first, the training occurred locally, with officers doing P-T in the Clark Sports Center. Seven years ago, the sheriff raised the idea of SUNY Oneonta hosting the program with the university’s president, Alan B. Donovan. It’s since become “the best part-time academy in the state,” according to SUNY Police Capt. Jim Small, the academy’s director. An in-county academy is more convenient, and the county can train deputies for $900 instead of $3,000, and can charge other counties – 12 in all – to train theirs. Small said admiringly that Mundy is a “stickler for details” – “He made it clear he had standards he wanted applied.” Because of his role in launching the effort, he is affectionately nicknamed “the founding father” and “the Thomas Jefferson,” said the captain. At the last graduation, to Mundy’s surprise, the award to the top student was named in his honor. “I’m usually not speechless,” he said. “But I couldn’t speak that night. It meant so much to me.” He and Ruth, now deceased, had three children, Dan, 45, Susanne, 42, and Carol, 36. He and his second wife, Doris, have been married for 12 years now. In talking to folks Sheriff Mundy worked with at the county, he emerges as a tireless advocate of his department’s needs, and those of the people they serve. “He defended his department very fervently,” said County Rep. Gregory J. Relic, Unadilla, chairman of the Public Safety Committee. “Particularly the road patrol.” Carl Higgins, Edmeston, who was board chairman for most of Mundy’s tenure, said the sheriff was “very energetic in his thoughts and principles and doesn’t hesitate to lay them out before you.” Asked for an example, Higgins laughed, then said, “I think I’ll let that go.” For his part, Mundy has one regret. A couple of years ago, the state conducted an audit of the jail and directed him to hire 14 more correctional officers. “I got them talked town to four,” he said, two last year and two in the ‘07 budget. 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