The Freemans Journal - Cooperstowns Newspaper Since 1808

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Otsego 2000 Hires Director

COOPERSTOWN

Otsego 2000 has selected Robin Krawitz, Dover, Dela., as its next executive director, effective Monday, Feb. 2.
A Long Islander who was raised in Florida, Krawitz was a coordinator with the Landmarks Society of Western New York in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.
For a decade, she has been a cultural preservation specialist with the Delaware Division of Historical & Cultural Affairs, and has taught at Delaware State University.
Nicole Dillingham of Springfield Center, interim director since Martha Frey’s resignation, will return to the Otsego 2000 board, where she was elected vice president.

Z-MUSSELS: The village trustees have approved an $11,250 contract with Lamont Engineering, Cobleskill, to study ways of keeping zebra mussels out of the municipal water supply.

HARTWICK LAYOFFS: Hartwick College has announced it is laying off nine fulltime employees and five part-timers.

HoF HONOREES: The National Soccer Hall of Fame has announced Jeff Agoos and Joy Fawcett will be inducted during this summer’s ceremonies.

IN THE MINORITY: So far since Democrats have taken over the state Senate, Jim Seward, R-Milford, has lost his chairmanship of the Insurance Committee, although he remains ranking minority member. Sixth-ranking Republican, he has asked to retain seats on finance, education, higher education and transportation committees.

LIFE IS A ... Don’t forget CCS’ Friends of Music & Art annual Caberet Night Friday evening, Jan. 23, in the CCS cafeteria, an annual showcase of local musical talent and student artwork.

Labels: 01-23-09, Cooperstown and Around, Front Page

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Inaugural Exhilarates, Exhausts Eyewitnesses From Cooperstown

By LAURA COX & JIM KEVLIN

Momentous. Nothing like it. Moving. Exhilarating. Triumphant.
Those are just a few of the words Otsego County folks used after witnessing firsthand the inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th president of the United States of America, Jan. 20 from Washington, D.C.,
They were among an estimated two million from across the nation in attendance. Many millions more watched and listened via TV, Internet and radio across the nation and around the world as the first African-American president was sworn in.
Take Jennifer Pindar.
The Cooperstown Central School history teacher and her group of 77 students and 10 adults got up at 4 a.m. and left their hotel at 5:30. Their bus parked near the Nationals baseball stadium and they walked to the Mall, between the Washington Monument and the Capitol, near a JumboTron.
“It was very moving, a tremendous speech, there was a lot of cheering and clapping and a lot energy,” the teacher said that evening. “The students took in the moment and enjoyed it.”
Take Tony Gambino.
“There was no racial tension,” said Gambino, an Emmy-winning former ABC cameraman who was drafted back into service and recorded the Inaugural Parade from a 100-foot-tall ladder truck in Lafayette Park. “People just came together. It seemed to be that everybody just had a smile on their face.
“Even now,” he said from Reagan National Airport the next morning as he awaited his flight back to Albany. “People are walking around with a big old smile on their face. There is hope.”
Take Sam Goodyear.
Goodyear, an administrator and grantsman at the Foothills Performing Arts Center, stayed with a friend in McLean, Va., and took the train into the Capital for the day.
Dressed in his John Adams regalia – he portrays Adams in the play, “Jefferson and Adams,” and at venues nationwide – and looking to be merely on the Mall during the inaugural ceremony, Goodyear found a spot on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
He estimates more than 100 people asked to have their photos taken with him.
“A teacher asked if I would have my picture taken with her class,” said Goodyear. “I met people from Hungary, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Botswana, France, lots of Canadians. People from Michigan, Oregon, Washington state, California, Montana, Missouri, Massachusetts, Vermont, Florida, Louisiana. Everybody was there, all mixed in.”
Take Janice Dean.

Jim Dean of Cooperstown and his daughter, Janice, an assistant D.A. in Manhattan, had won the Inaugural ticket “lottery” on U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer’s Web site.
Jim stayed in Cooperstown, but Janice met a friend in D.C.
“The tickets didn’t do much good,” said the father. “It was a madhouse.”
Exhausted, Janice arrived home in Queens late that night.
Take former Oneonta mayor Kim Muller.
She and friend Matt Marvel went down to D.C. on Sunday and caught the end of the “We Are One” concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
On Monday, they went early to American History Museum, where there is an exhibit on Abraham Lincoln and presentations for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“There were a lot of people there; it was a very touching tribute to MLK,” she said.
Gov. David Paterson hosted a reception for New Yorkers that evening at the Smithsonian castle, and Hillary Clinton, the prospective Secretary of State, gave what might be her last public speech as New York’s junior senator.
“It was a great evening,” said Muller.
After braving the crowds for two days, Muller and Marvel had had enough of the crowds and opted to watch the inauguration from a friend’s house in Virginia.
“Obama’s speech was very strong and forward looking,” said the Democrat. “It sent a message to the nation and to the world. It was very hopeful about our future.”.
Inauguration Day, Tony Gambino was up at 3 a.m. It took him two hours to get through security, as bags were checked and trained dogs sniffed everything.
One street would be open, then the Secret Service would suddenly shift entry to another street. “They never give anybody a chance to get some kind of pattern,” he said.
Hours followed in his perch, manning a camera that magnified images 100-fold, 200-fold with an attachment. During the ceremony, the images ABC broadcast of Liberty on the Capitol Dome were shot by Tony from 1½ miles away.
As the Inaugural Parade headed down Pennsylvania Avenue, Gambino noticed Secret Service agents signaling the new president and first lady, and Barack and Michelle Obama exited the limousine to walk 2-3 blocks and wave to the crowds.
There was an Inaugural Ball at the Courtyard by Marriott when Tony got back to the hotel at 11:30 p.m. that evening, but he went right to bed. “I was so shot,” he said.

Labels: 01-23-09, Barack Obama, Front Page, Inauguration

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Ball Team On Deck For Cooperstown

By JIM KEVLIN

COOPERSTOWN

Out of the mouths of babes.
When Tom Hickey of Fly Creek, dean of SUNY Cobleskill’s School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, told his son Michael, 11, he was thinking about bringing a minor-league team to Cooperstown, the boy said:
“Dad, Cooperstown is a baseball town without a baseball team.”
Hickey wants to change that.
He’s been talking to the village’s Doubleday Field Committee, but appeared before the village trustees Tuesday, Jan. 20, and was told to come back to the February meeting with a formal proposal.
Hickey would be president of the to-be-formed corporation, and his partner, vice president and GM would be Kevin McCarthy, SUNY Cobleskill athletic director and former University of Chicago head baseball coach
The two men have been considering the Cooperstown team for two years since the Little Falls Miners, an affiliate of the New York Collegiate Baseball League, went on the market.
Why go to Little Falls, the two men concluded, when we have Cooperstown right here?
Hickey likened the NYCBL to the Cape Cod League. It’s a summer league affiliated with MLB that allows NCAA Division I players to hone their skills.
Founded in 1978, it now has franchises from Niagara Falls to Bennington, Vt., and boasts such illustrious alumni as Yankee Clay Bellinger and Astro Glen Barker.
This is what the partners need from the village:
• Availability of Doubleday Field for 20 games in June and July, plus the first week in August if the team gets into the playoffs. The idea is to start the games at 5 p.m., to get them done before dark.
• Permission to use a P-A system to announce the game, and to put feature sponsors on billboards in the outfield.
• Concession rights, to sell hot dogs, popcorn and, in particular, beer, a high-margin product that spells the difference between success and failure for many franchises.
“We’re not in this to make a lot of money,” said Hickey. “We’re in this because it’s going to be great for Cooperstown, it’s going to be great for the kids, it’s going to be great for us.
“But,” he said, “we have to operate on a break-even basis.”
The partners have been talking to the Clark Sports Center about using the locker rooms there. Hickey said he also hopes to create an Adopt A Player program, where team members can bunk with local families.
At the trustees’ meeting, Deputy Mayor Jeff Katz wondered how neighbors on Susquehanna Avenue and Elm Street, bothered to a degree by the occasional concerts and former Hall of Fame Game home-run derby in Doubleday, would accept this.
Trustee Eric Hage, Doubleday committee chair, said, all things being equal, “I’d like to see this happen.”
A native of Rhode Island, Hickey got his master’s and Ph.D. in Texas and began teaching at the college level in the Lone Star State. He later obtained a law degree at the University of Oregon.
He and his wife, Nancy Kern, a nurse anesthesiologist, met when he was teaching at Penn State Harrisburg and she was at Hershey Medical Center.
She now works at Bassett Hospital. In addition to Michael, the couple has a daughter, Megan, 8.

Labels: 01-23-09, Cooperstown Baseball, Front Page

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Lauren Groff’s 2nd Book Due Out On Jan. 27

COOPERSTOWN

Lauren Groff’s second book, “Delicate Edible Birds,” a collection of nine short stories, is about to take its place on hundreds of Cooperstown bookshelves – and thousands nationally – alongside her acclaimed first novel, “The Monsters of Templeton,” released a year ago.
The book is due to be published by Voice on Jan. 27, but is available on amazon.com.
“Every single main character is a woman,” the author said from her home in Gainesville, Fla., during an interview while 9-month-old son Beckett was napping.
“I like to look at these wonderful, inspiring women, and writing about them.”
She paused. “Not everyone is wonderful. Some of them do some actually cruddy things.”
The daughter of Gerald and Jeannine Groff of Cooperstown, Lauren estimated she’s written 300 stories over the past dozen years, beginning while at Cooperstown Central School and continuing at Amherst.
“A lot of these I’ve been working on for 15 years and thousands of drafts.”
While writing a novel can be heavy lifting, short stories come in “ecstatic bursts,” she said. “Every draft is a catharsis.”
The title story – it was previously published in Atlantic Monthly – deals with a group of reporters, including a woman, who fall prey to a brutal farmer while fleeing the Nazis in France during World War II.
“The Wife of the Dictator” deals with an increasingly desperate woman brought home from the U.S. Another is set in the 1919 flu pandemic.
In “Lucky Chow Fun,” Lauren’s characters are back in Templeton, her fictionalized Cooperstown.
“I just love the pressures of a small town on fiction,” she said, “because a small town is such a microcosm of the world.”

Labels: 01-23-09, Front Page, Lauren Grof

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2 Churches Folded Into St. Mary’s

COOPERSTOWN

Several hundred more souls may come into the 1,500-soul fold at St. Mary’s “Our Lady of the Lake” Church in Cooperstown under the Catholic Diocese of Albany’s reorganization plan.
The plan, announced in a letter from Bishop Howard J. Hubbard read Saturday, Jan. 17, from pulpits across the 14-county diocese, closes Blessed Sacrament, which serves Springfield Center, a mission church to St. Thomas the Apostle in Cherry Valley.
It also reduces St. Thomas to mission status under St. Mary’s wing, although its former pastor, the Rev. John Roos, who at 78 has retired from administrative duties, will continue to say mass in Cherry Valley for the next 18 months.
That leaves only three fulltime priests in Otsego County: St. Mary’s pastor, the Rev. John Rosson; Rev. Joseph A. Benintende, pastor of St. Mary’s in Oneonta, and the Rev. John Burns, pastor of Holy Cross in Morris. Father Burns is also dean of the Otsego County Deanery.
“It means a greater challenge for St. Mary’s,” said Father Rosson. “Of all the parishes in the western part of the diocese” – it cuts across mid-state from the Massachusetts to the Pennsylvania state lines – “we are the only church that picked up another church.”
This will give the Cooperstown parish responsibility for three more buildings, the debt of the other parishes and coordination of services, Rosson said.
The parishes were established “before the automobile, before the transportation we have today,” he continued, likening to the bishop’s announcement – 33 churches were closed diocese-wide – to a bank merger that required duplicative branches to close.
The pastor said he plans to have lunch in the next few days with St. Thomas’ current director, Karen Walker, to begin talking through transition issues.
St. Thomas now has 250 parishioners, but half of them may decide to attend mass in Cobleskill or Canajoharie, Rosson said.
St. Mary’s mission church in Sharon Springs is also being closed, but the pastor said he is encouraging those parishioners to affiliate with the Canajoharie parish, which is only nine miles to the north.
St. Joseph’s Church in Richfield Springs will continue as a mission church, but administratively it is being affiliated with the Herkimer Deanery.

Labels: 01-23-09, Front Page

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‘Buy American’ Urged

Manno Puts Flag on Every Pallet,
Asks All To Do Same

By JIM KEVLIN

Mike Manno has been putting American-flag labels marked, “Made In U.S.A.,” on every pallet that leaves his dock at Apple Converting Inc. in Oneonta’s Pony Farm Industrial Park.
Instead of depending on a huge government-backed stimulus package, simply buying products made in the U.S. would prime the pump sufficiently to get the economy going again, Manno believes.
“If everybody buys 10 percent more this year of American products, it would make a heck of a difference,” said Manno, whose printing presses make specialty labels for Lindt Chocolates’ New Hampshire plant and medical packaging for Becton Dickinson, which controls 90 percent of the syringe market.
Since Apple Converting makes labels, the president of the company said he would provide custom-size labels to any manufacturer interested in following his company’s lead.
Manno is also considering erecting billboards on I-88 near his plant. One might say, “Buy American And Get The Lead Out,” a reference to recent instances of lead-laced goods from China. Or, “America Works When America Makes.”
Both the Otsego County Chamber and Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce presidents said their organizations would support Manno’s concept. (Manno and his wife, Carol, the company’s vice president, live in Cooperstown.)
“Local is always good; it keeps the money local,” said the Otsego chamber’s Rob Robinson, adding – if it catches on – the drive could benefit Otsego County first, then upstate, then New York State and, finally, the nation.
While he noted that, in a global economy, it’s sometimes hard to figure out what’s made in the U.S.A. and what isn’t, Cooperstown chamber president Marc Kingsley said, “Yes, buying American, there’s nothing wrong with that ... We should all try to support our local businesses.”
State Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, called Manno’s initiative “a great idea. I’m a great believer in keeping dollars at home and circulating in the local economy.”
If the push gains momentum, the senator said he would seek to connect the local effort with Empire State Development, the state’s economic development corporation.
He pointed out that there is precedent for this sort of thing in the “Pride of New York” promotion of New York agricultural products.
“The concept makes good sense,” added Geoff Smith, president of Medical Coaches, Oneonta, one of the county’s foremost manufacturers.
The concept does make good economic sense, particularly shortterm, Karl Seeley, Hartwick College economics professor, underscored when asked about Manno’s push.
Shortterm, said Seeley, a 10 percent increase in sales of American goods would cause an infusion of cash into existing factories, which would be inclined to extend hours and hire more people to produce more.
Also, he said, economists refer to a concept called “leakage.” The government uses the multiplier effect to determine the economic benefits of a dollar spent as it passes from hand to hand; once that dollar leaves the U.S., it no longer benefits the U.S. economy.
Investors might make decisions to build plants in the U.S. rather than overseas, he said, but only if they could be assured a Buy American program wouldn’t peter out.
Big Picture, said Seeley, free trade allows manufacturing to flow to where it can be done most inexpensively.
The hourly wage of a service job in the U.S. is many times that of a manufacturing job in say, China, giving American consumers a lot more purchasing power, he said.
If a U.S. service wage equals that of a U.S. factory wage, the consumer can buy much less; but, if buying American results in more manufacturing in the U.S., that will benefit the economy overall regardless of diminished buying power.
Longterm, said Seeley, who said he’s been working through the numbers on these concepts in the past few weeks, the global economy is based on cheap energy and cheap wages.
As soon as the economy rebounds, energy prices will leap, so trouble’s on the horizon regardless; for now, however, a 10 percent increased in spending on American goods would help the U.S. economy, he said.
As for Manno, he said that, because the state of the economy has people paying attention, now is the time to attempt a Buy American drive, which allows everybody to make a contribution to the economy recovery.
“The solution is fairly simple if we get everybody moving in the same direction,” he said.

Labels: 01-23-09, Buy American, Front Page

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There Were Many Slopes To Hit In Otsego County’s Winters Past

Mount Otsego Lured 400 Ski Buffs On ‘Snow Train’ From Schenectady

‘We had more fun than people should be allowed to have,” said Richfield Springs’ George Ehrmann of the many weekends spent at Mount Otsego.
With an opening like that, great stories are sure to follow.
One time, friends bet him $5 he couldn’t ski down the main hill playing “The Lady of Spain” on his accordion.
Another friend tied the accordion to his back. George walked away $5 richer.
Recently recognized as a Lifetime Member of the Alumni Association of the National Ski Patrol, Ehrmann spent over 30 years on the ski patrol at Mount Otsego.
Here’s his story:
“The time frame of 1935 to 1936, Les Clark, Ted “Tiger” Fuery, Abe and Les Lippitt, Ernie Whitaker and Ray Burr had discussions about ideas for winter sports activities. Some of them knew about rope tows that were in use in northern New York and Vermont. The Cooperstown Winter Sports Association was then started by a group of people.
“There was a property in Bowerstown that apparently belonged to Robert S. Clark. In 1935 or 1936, the rope tow was set up. At this point in time, an old friend of mine, Les Hanson was interested in skiing and Les thought that Pierstown was a much better hill. Les was joined in this quest for a better ski hill by John Sill and Bob Rowley and several other locals.

“A group of ski enthusiasts decided to take a trip up to North Creek, NY and check out one of the earliest rope tows in New York State. Carter Burnett came up with a design for a rope tow that was produced by the well-known Utica firm: Utica Steam and Boiler Works.
“The Ovid Drake farm in Pierstown was where the new rope tow would go. This is one farm up from where it is today. In December of 1938 the new tow was opened. There appeared to be many complications, financial concerns, quite a bit of ice and not great skiing. So in 1939, the whole operation moved back one farm, owned by the Lamb family, to what is now the present site.
“Les Hanson was a mainstay at the Pierstown ski area. Years later Les and I became very good friends, when he was running Mount Otsego. He could fix just about anything, and make things run under sometimes very trying, cold weather. The winter of 1939-1940 saw snow trains coming to Cooperstown. I have heard of at least two, possibly more than that. The snow train came in from Schenectady with almost 400 skiers.”

Many Mourn Lost Ski Areas That Once Abounded Locally

By JEANNINE BOHLER

Back in the day, it was easy to hit the slopes.
Bundle up and gather the skis and within minutes you could be headed up the mountain for a day of fun.
Mount Otsego, Scotch Valley, Gunset, Mount Siberia, Snowy Acres, Bear Springs, Mount Miles are just a few of the estimated 350 small ski areas that once operated in New York York State that have now been lost to the pages of history and the local lore.
It wasn’t hard to make a rope tow. All that was needed was a farm tractor, some tires and old telephone poles, and you had yourself a cheap lift, according to Harry Peplinski, owner of Mount Otsego Ski Shop in Cooperstown. And just about every community boasted their own.
Gunset Ski Area in Richfield Springs opened in the early 1960s, with four intermediate trails, a novice trail and one beginner slope. A poma lift – essentially a pole with a seat attached to suspended springs that connect to a moving cable – and a rope tow got skiers up the hills.
Adults could ski all day for $3; juniors for $2. It operated on Wednesday and Thursdays, weekends and holidays, and offered two days of night skiing under the lights, according to Lost Ski Areas of New York (www.nelsap.org/ny/ny.html).
“It was a place for families and children,” said Zaida Welden, who ran Gunset with her first husband, Lewis Whipple, and her in-laws, Janet and Lewis Whipple. “We enjoyed them. I was sorry to see it go. There just isn’t any place around here like it for the kids any more.”
The Whipples operated Gunset until 1978, when it was sold. It then closed permanently after just one season.
“There were plenty of times when we were stymied without enough snow. But it was a natural snow bowl. We got quite a bit of snow. Sometimes it was hard just to get into the place.”
The slopes are still clearly visible from Route 20, just west of Richfield Springs. The lodge is still intact. The tow looks like all that’s needed is to throw a switch. But the skiers are gone. A hillside teaming with adults and kids is the ghost of a memory.
“It was a magical place,” said Joan Marseski, who grew up in Richfield Springs. “We just waited for Saturday morning. It didn’t matter how cold it was, we knew we were going skiing.”

Mount Siberia operated in Milford. It offered three slopes, all day skiing for $2 and a heated and lighted shelter, according to Oneonta City Historian Mark Simonson.
Oneonta saw the rise and fall of a few ski slopes over the years. One area operated on the northern edge of Wilbur Park near the Oneonta Middle School and was free to the public. It closed after a few years of operation.
Another opened in 1957 and another after that in1972, but both closed after only a few years of operation.
In 1970, perhaps the most successful of the Oneonta ski areas opened at College Camp, four miles north of the SUNY Oneonta Campus. Owned and operated by the university, it was first known as Cocaska – the winner of a name contest – and was later renamed Dragon East Ski Area. It offered downhill skiing, ski rental and lessons until 1984.
Scotch Valley in Stamford was frequented by local skiers and offered a nearby destination at a mountain bigger then the local operations, but more intimate and less expensive then the larger mountains in the Catskills and Adirondacks.

Labels: 01-23-09, Glimmerglass, Mount Otsego, Skiing

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Welding 101

SAM GOODYEAR

ART BEAT

If, as someone once famously said, movement is the breath of art, then there is one whole lot of oxygen hovering over Sculpture Space in Utica. But I digress.
Although Europe has a long tradition of arts patronage (Lorenzo de’ Medici, Count Esterhazy, Marie von Thurn und Taxis come immediately to mind), Europeans are amazed at the vigorous support of the arts in America by the private citizen. Donors to orchestras, theaters, museums, opera companies and the like are a rarity; something like public supported radio is unheard of; where in Europe are the retreats to promote and facilitate creativity like Yaddo, Breadloaf and the MacDowell Colony?
Sculpture Space, although its name may seem to connote a museum, is an enterprise, like the colonies listed above, devoted to the creative process, providing twenty artists a year with the means and materials to work in a concentrated environment on projects of their choosing. It is the only such residency committed specifically to the nurturing of sculpture in the United States.
Its executive director, since 2003, is Cooperstown’s very own, very able, very exuberant, very positive, very indefatigable Sydney Waller. A Smith College alumna majoring in antique and medieval art history, she has tirelessly spent her adult life focusing on showcasing the art of emerging painters and sculptors. In Cooperstown, she was director of the Smithy-Pioneer Gallery for a number of years and opened Gallery 53 on Main Street, in the process catapulting a country woodworker, Lavern Kelley, to international prominence.
Located at 12 Gates St. near downtown Utica, Sculpture Space occupies 5,000 square feet of what used to be a cradle for steam engines and boiler works. Its bold lettering crowning an otherwise purely industrially functional edifice announces energy and excitement and cultural progress.
There is something invigorating about absorbing the contrasts and optimistic implications of its location.
If it’s not a museum, what possible connection to the larger public does it have?
Plenty. There are several Works in Progress Receptions a year where one can interact with the artists directly and observe the evolution of their creations.
The next such one is 5-7 p.m. March 31. There is also a wildly popular annual fund-raising Mardi Gras bash on Saturday, Feb. 21, at the nearby Radisson Hotel.
But, before that, you may want to try your hand at welding. Pre-register for the Winter Workshop: Introduction to Welding (Jan. 31 and Feb. 1).
(Call 315-724-8381 or go to info@sculpture space.org)

Labels: 01-23-09, Art Beat, Columns, Glimmerglass, Sam Goodyear

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Magic Man

EVAN JAGELS

NIGHT LIFE

‘Every kid had the magic phase,” Brian Miller said following his fast-paced combination of illusion, sleight of hand and stand-up comedy as SUNY Oneonta’s entertainment at Spring semester orientation Monday, Jan. 12.
It’s true – search hard enough at any house where children once lived and you’re bound to find a dusty box, stained by time yet opened only once or twice, containing a small plastic wand, some pieces of rope, a few balls, Dixie cups, and four to six playing cards.
I remember the sheer disappointment I experienced on opening such a box. I found that it did not contain steaming potions, things that could explode or even a live rabbit. It looked as though my parents had just cleaned up from my birthday party and arranged all the trash neatly in a box labeled “Magic Kit.”
Brian Miller, now a SUNY Oneonta junior pursuing a dual major in math and philosophy – he plans on pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy – is still in his magic phase, however, and it has brought him a long way.
From age 4, he apparently knew what hard work it would take to turn such innocuous objects into instruments of wonder.
Since age16, Brian has been entertaining professionally, opening for national touring comedians and performing in venues from western New York (he is a Buffalo native) to the Oneonta area, and down to New York City.
The orientation performance to a packed Waterfront Café was a captivating display of Brian’s quick hands, Conan O’Brian wit and mastery of the working magician’s arsenal.
And he didn’t forget to touch upon key issues of sex, religion and Scrabble.
Adding to the comedic effect, mind-boggling magic was paired nicely with routines which were conscious parodies of themselves.
It is impressive to think how Brian balances school and performance. Most students have outside interests, some of them professional, but Brian spends almost every weekend of the semester on the road.
He admits that his work is “as full time a living as you can make while a student.” Another impressive feat, considering he is already booked into this summer and does not even work through an agent.
In addition to his busy performance schedule, Brian has authored a popular e-book series for magicians entitled “Cards, Coins, Thoughts & Theories” – four volumes – and has landed a DVD deal with a production company.
More can be learned, including booking and show information, at Brian’s website www.brianmillermagic.com.

Labels: 01-23-09, Evan Jagels, Glimmerglass, Night Life

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State Must Live Within Its Means

ROBERT E. ROBINSON & KENNETH ADAMS

GUEST COMMENTARY

Let’s admit it: New York State is grappling with a fiscal crisis largely of its own making. The national recession/Wall Street melt down magnify the problem, but the state has a $15 billion budget deficit, not because we don’t collect enough taxes, but because we spend too much.
To avoid being in this terrible situation again, we must leverage this current crisis to achieve long-term reforms in government spending and fiscal policy.
Our No. 1 priority should be capping state spending – an annual limit on the increase in state spending that would, in turn, drive other badly needed reforms. State and local spending in New York is now the second highest in the nation – 47 percent above the national average. A spending cap would help bring this excess under control.
It’s clear where much of this overspending is centered – and that it doesn’t actually buy us better services:
• As a state, we have the highest per-pupil education spending in this country – nearly $19,000 per student, 63 percent above the national average. Yet we’re 33rd in the nation in eighth-grade math scores and not much better on other pupil-performance measures.
• The state’s per-capita Medicaid spending is more than double the national average, according to Kaiser State Health Facts. Yet, despite this off the charts spending, our key health-care indicators are worse than the national averages.
On the revenue side, our personal-income and real estate taxes are the highest in the country. Business taxes are the second highest. The result is the worst tax climate in America, and an economy that was already tanking before the downturn.
In terms of personal-income growth from 1995 to 2005, New York ranked 42nd among the 50 states. Even with what seemed to be a booming New York City economy, our state was among the nine worst-performing economies in the entire country.
All this has been driving people away. Since 2000, New York has led the nation in the number of residents moving to other states, according to the Census. Each year we suffer a net loss of more than 200,000 New Yorkers – we basically lose another Syracuse every 12 months.
In recent years, Wall Street pumped out 20 percent of state revenues – masking the fundamental problems in our fiscal policy. Now that narcotic is gone – and the “halo effect” of New York City’s prosperity hiding the decline of the rest of the state is over. The ATM just rejected our card and told us we’re $15 billion overdrawn.
Our leaders must make significant cuts in government programs and services.
The state must relieve local governments and school districts of antiquated regulations and mandates so they can cut their costs. Simply shifting the burden from state taxes to local property tax does no good.
Which brings us back to the spending cap. Since the ‘70s, 30 other states have adopted such caps – some constitutional, some statutory. Such measures can limit the rise in outlays to the growth of population and personal incomes in the state, and/or to inflation. The key is to peg the growth of state spending to a level that the state’s economy and its taxpayers can sustain.
A spending cap for New York’s state government would lead to other essential reforms, including the modernization of public-employee pensions, consolidation of local governments and services and reform of public authorities.
Families across New York are making prudent choices to live within their means. Our state and local governments must now do the same.

Rob Robinson is Otsego County Chamber president & CEO. Ken Adams is president
& CEO, The Business Council of
New York State.

Labels: 01-23-09, Columns, Guest Column, Opinion, Perspectives

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Bound Volumes

175 YEARS AGO

Hartwick Seminary – I have observed that during the past year the number of students attending the Hartwick Seminary have gradually diminished until the present term, but I am happy to state that it is now rapidly increasing. This institution, which once stood superior to any of its kind in the State, and which was then the pride of Otsego County, is now under the corps of teachers whose qualifications are too well known to require any commendation. The Library attached to the Seminary, contains a numerous collection of books, well adapted to the cultivation of the youthful intellect. With these advantages, nothing is necessary to elevate the institution to its former rank among the literati, but some improvements upon the buildings, together with the erection of a commodious boarding house; and these defects will no doubt soon be remedied, when the Hartwick Seminary will again be inferior to no institution of the same class in the State.
January 27, 1834

150 YEARS AGO

Dr. Gleason, formerly Professor of Surgery at Philadelpia, and Professor of Anatomy at Cincinnati, Ohio will lecture at Schenevus Tuesday afternoon, January 25, to Ladies Only on Woman and her Diseases – their causes; means of prevention and proper mode of cure. This lecture is thoroughly illustrated with a model of the female which dissects so as to exhibit all the internal organs; and also over one hundred models. It has been prepared with great care, in the selection of language and is designed expressly to meet the wants of woman, and abounds in valuable practical information as to the best means of preserving and restoring female health. Admission 25 cents.
January 21, 1859

125 YEARS AGO

The Semi-Centennial (50th anniversary) services in the Baptist Church of this village occur on Sunday next; sermon in the morning by Rev. E.R. Sawyer, of Sandy Hill, a former Pastor of the church. In the evening a letter will be read from Rev. Lewis Raymond, of Chicago, the first Pastor of the church and one of its constituent members.
January 19, 1884

100 YEARS AGO

The Clark-Hun Wedding – Miss Susan Hun, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Marcus T. Hun, Albany, and Stephen Clark of Cooperstown and New York, will be married at 12:30 o’clock on Saturday, February 20, at the Cathedral of All Saints, Albany. Bishop Doane will officiate. Miss Hun will have nine attendants, a maid of honor, her sister, Miss Mary Hun, and eight bridesmaids – Miss Alice Bowditch; Miss Mary Lewis; Miss Mary Lloyd, Miss Grace Brown, Miss Eleanor Parker, Miss Ann Gardinier, Miss Mary Martin and Miss Cynthia Sherwood. Edward S. Clark of Cooperstown and New York will be the best man. The ushers have not been selected yet. There will be nine. Mr. Clark and bride will sail at once for Europe and will spend two months automobiling in Italy.
January 21, 1909

75 YEARS AGO

Cooperstown people were thrilled Sunday morning with a beautiful exhibition of stunt flying given over the village by Sherman Lutz, a pilot of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mr. Lutz brought Mr. and Mrs. LoCove of Scranton here on Saturday to spend the week-end as guests of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore R. Lettis, landing on the Polo Grounds of the Iroquois Farm. Mr. and Mrs. Lettis entertained a party of 20 in their honor at their home on Leatherstocking Street.
January 24, 1934

50 YEARS AGO

The Mother’s March on Polio will take place in Cooperstown on Wednesday, January 28, between the hours of 7 and 8 p.m. Mrs. Raymond Rogers, Jr., and Mrs. Charles A. Wick, are co-chairmen of the fund drive. An estimated 43 million Americans under 40 years old have not received the Salk vaccine. At least 1,700 Americans depend on iron lung machines for the very breath of life and many more have stand-by respirators. In 1958 there were 5,000 new cases of polio reported. Polio patient costs for the past year are estimated at $18,900,000. Your contribution through the March of Dimes will help all patients needing aid in 1959, regardless of age.
January 21, 1959

25 YEARS AGO

Results from a dual swim meet pitting the ACC Gym Shark Team against Canajoharie Saturday, January 7. The Sharks took an early lead but Canajoharie caught up and then won two of the last three relays to win the meet 207-197. Heather Redding, 10, broke her own breaststroke record and swam to first place in the individual medley. In the 8-under group Megan Sanford finished first in backstroke and butterfly; Peter Kelly was first in backstroke and freestyle. In the 9-10 age group Kim Lemister finished first in butterfly; Missy Cunningham was second in freestyle and third in butterfly; Brooke Nagelschmidt was third in breaststroke.
January 25, 1984

10 YEARS AGO

Edward W. Stack is this year’s recipient of the Frank Slocum Award for meritorious service. Stack received the award at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City during the 10th annual “Going to Bat for B.A.T. Dinner” Tuesday night. The Baseball Assistance Team (BAT) is an organization founded in 1986 to aid those members of the “baseball family” who are unable to help themselves. Stack was described in the dinner program as a highly respected baseball executive and business leader widely recognized for his tireless efforts on behalf of many charitable causes. Stack has been a singular force in the growth and development of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum since 1961 and he currently serves as the Hall’s acting president.
January 22, 1999

Bound Volumes is compiled from resources provided courtesy of the New York State Historical Association Library. Tom Heitz is the Town of Otsego historian.

Labels: 01-23-09, Bound Volumes, Columns

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Letters to the Editor

Zebra Mussels, Part II?

To the Editor:
Local news stories have detailed the threat posed by zebra mussels, recently discovered in Otsego Lake, to the Village of Cooperstown’s water supply.
There is talk of expensive remediation efforts, including chemical treatment of water, possibly affecting the lake, “pigging” the intake pipe by routing it out in reverse, and perhaps other steps.
Fifteen year ago, when the state proposed a motorboat launch for Glimmerglass State Park, Motorless Otsego and some others who opposed the launch argued motorboats coming into the lake from other bodies of water were the most likely vector for the introduction of zebra mussels.
Access to the lake by those not owning lakefront property could have been established by a boat livery for fishermen and others, as Phil Wilder, then Republican County Committee chair suggested, but this wasn’t accepted.
Objections were raised, mostly by those who insisted on their right to recreate by bringing in motorboats from elsewhere, in spite of the risk.
The compromise “solution” proposed at the time was a costly boat-washing station, even though this was recognized to be less than adequate. Zebra mussels can be transmitted in the water intake systems of motors and in crevices easily missed by boat washing. This solution turned out to be no solution at all and today we see the result.
Now we are making the same mistake again. This time the problem is large scale herbicide/pesticide use on the golf course. Again we hear that this is a risk we can run, again convenience and recreation trump ecological concerns, and again less than adequate remedies are proposed.
This time the compromise “solution” is something called “integrated pest management,” which means using toxic chemicals according to current guidelines.
Trouble is, the consequences of prolonged use of such chemicals is unknown.
We may learn, as we often have in the past, that a toxic exposure once thought insignificant turns out to have serious, possibly fatal consequences.
As with motorboat launching, putting unnecessary chemicals in the village’s drinking water resevior is in effect a decision to run an unnecessary and potentially serious risk.
This time, however, it is not just the lake that is put at risk, but the health of Village residents.
This habit of insisting upon some pleasure, gain, or convenience, even in the face of possible serious risks, defies common sense. It suggests a collective immaturity on our part, born perhaps of decades of unparalleled prosperity, consumerism, and unsustainable expectations.
The lesson that such risk-taking is dangerous and ultimately irresponsible is expressed by the Precautionary Principle.
According to the Wikipedia,the Precautionary Principle holds that “if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action.”
In other words, you don’t do something potentially harmful if you can avoid it. This is not some kind of “tree-hugger” idealism. It is actual law in the European Union, and it should be here too.
It doesn’t mean that there aren’t risks worth taking. But among those not worth taking are those which put recreation and aesthetics and convenience ahead of ecological and personal health.
ADRIAN KUZMINSKI
Sustainable Otesgo, Fly Creek

Labels: 01-23-09, Letters to the Editor, Opinion, Perspectives

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Locals

New Director Takes Helm At Clark
Deon Wade Managed Huge Gym At Universiity of Texas, Austin

COOPERSTOWN

When Deon Wade was playing football at Trinity University in San Antonio, the Tigers made it to the Division III semi-finals two years and the quarter-finals the third.
Even though another Tiger, Jerheme Urban, will be playing with the Arizona Cardinals in this year’s Superbowl, “I never expected to go anywhere with it,” said Wade, who is the new director of the Clark Sports Center as of Monday, Jan. 12, supervising 35 fulltime employees, 60-70 parttimers, and a multitude of programs.
Instead, he was drawn to a career that prepared him for his new responsibilities, interning in his senior year in Trinity’s intramurals program, “a more fun, casual environment.”
After obtaining a master’s in educational leadership from University of Central Florida at Orlando, he joined Stetson University in Deland, Fla., as assistant director of student activities for recreational wellness. In a couple of years, he moved closer to his family, joining the University of Texas, Austin, as assistant director of facilities for the Division of Recreational Sports.
There, he managed 250,000-square-foot Gregory Gym; the Clark is 64,000 square feet.
He moved to Cooperstown last June when Anna Wade became the National Baseball Hall of Fame director of education. The two married earlier this month.

HONOREE: A plaque to honor the late Mary Pugliese Murdock, Bassett Hospital nurse and Cooperstown native, has been placed in the Bassett Cancer Institute. Mary was originator of the 2008 Fairway to Life Golf Tournament, benefiting the Bob Simon/Loretta Anagnost Patient Assistance Fund.

SCHOLARSHIP: CCS graduate Robert Alan Bauer has received a Wilder Trustee Scholarship at the University of Rochester. He is a freshman and son of Michael and Stephanie Bauer.

SLAMS MADE: Virginia Weiller and Janet Gray bid and won a bonus slam when five tables of Senior Citizens Bridge convened Tuesday, Jan. 20, at the Clark Sports Center. Barbara Curran and Mary Ann Robinson won a small slam. Overall Vera Talevi was first with 5,280; Joe Langan second with 4,630 and Virginia Weiller third with 4,590.

Labels: 01-23-09, Locals

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As Went Henry Clay, So Goes Mike Manno: Buy American!

When Henry Clay, The Great Compromiser, died in 1852, a national campaign got underway to build monuments in his honor across the country.
No, it wasn’t because his political and oratorical skills delayed the Civil War by perhaps 40 years.
It was because he supported a strong tariff, and the tariff allowed American coal and iron enterprises to grow and flourish in the face of the cheap coal and iron being produced in England.
Nowadays, of course, that seems quaint in the face of the global economy and the cry for free trade.
There’s a point to free trade. Given modern transportation and communication, it allows manufacturing to happen in places where it’s cheapest, and therefore American consumers have more money to buy more things.
But ideas generally aren’t right or wrong. They are right or wrong in a given context.
If Henry Clay’s American System – as it was called – would have been wrong in a 1990s context, he was right in a 19th century one.
That’s why 23 communities across the U.S. are named Ashland – after Henry Clay’s Kentucky estate. There are 15 Clay counties nationwide.
•
The same goes for Mike Manno’s Buy American campaign. (Manno, who lives in Cooperstown, owns Apple Converting, the Oneonta printing firm.)
Ten years ago, when the economy was close to full employment, there would have been no point in tilting toward American products, according to Karl Seeley, Hartwick College economics professor.
Doing so would have produced more jobs in the U.S., but there was no need for more jobs.
Today, it’s a different story, as unemployment heads toward double digits for the first time in decades.
According to Seeley, Manno’s call for Americans to spend 10 percent more on U.S. products this year would be a significant shot in the arm of functioning manufacturing plants stateside.
The government applies a multiplier in computing the impact of things like President Barack Obama’s prospective stimulus program. It predicts the beneficial economic impact of a dollar doubles and triples and quadruples as it passes from hand to hand to hand.
When a dollar is spent on foreign goods, said Seeley, that’s termed “leakage,” since the dollar leaks out of the economy.
If Manno’s campaign catches on, “it wouldn’t be trivial,” the professor said.
Rob Robinson, Otsego County Chamber president & CEO, put it this way: “Local is always good; it keeps the money locally.”
•
Longterm, Seeley said, the picture is more complicated.
Manufacturers probably wouldn’t build more plants in the U.S. unless they could be assured the Buy American impetus was permanent.
And since one hour’s pay earned in the service sector is worth about an hour of a U.S. factory worker’s – the same hour’s pay pays for many hours in China – buying power in the U.S. would drop, Seeley said.
On the whole though, if more people were employed in the U.S., there would be more money being spent, which would be good for the economy overall.
Longterm, he said, benefits to the U.S. from the global economic system are based on cheap energy everywhere and cheap wages elsewhere, and that may not be sustainable. So the whole global system must be rethought.
The point is that, this year anyhow, Buy American makes sense.
Let’s do it, and hope the campaign catches on nationally.
•
Apple Converting makes flexible packaging, and Mike Manno has offered labels of any size at no cost to manufacturers who want to participate.
If you’re reading this and you make something in the United States of America, call Peggy Marshall at 432-6500 and place your order.

Labels: 01-23-09, Editorial, Opinion, Perspectives

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Obituaries

Elsie Vermilya, 87; Journalist With Freeman’s Journal 18 Years

NEW HARTFORD – Elsie A. Vermilya, a former resident of Fly Creek, died Sunday afternoon, Jan. 18, 2009, at Faxton-St. Luke’s Healthcare in Utica. She was 87.
A native of Delaware County, Elsie was born in Stamford on Sept. 22, 1921, a daughter of William R. and Susie B. Henness-Darling.
A 1939 graduate of Stamford Central School, Elsie was employed in her early years as the advertising manager and was later named news editor of the Stamford Mirror-Recorder, a weekly newspaper.
On Oct. 2, 1953, Elsie married George E. Vermilya in a ceremony at the Hobart Methodist Church. In 1954, the couple moved to Cooperstown where George was employed as the manager of the Sealtest Milk Plant at the corner of Chestnut and Walnut Streets.
During their years in the Cooperstown area, the Vermilyas resided in Fly Creek. For 18 years, Elsie was employed on the news staff of The Freeman’s Journal and was also involved with various community organizations. She was a member and past president of both the Sgt. Walter P. Eggleston Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 7128 Ladies’ Auxiliary and the Criterion Club and served on the Board of Directors of the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce.
In 1971, Elsie and George moved to St. Lawrence County to reside in Madrid, where George was employed as a dairy farm inspector for the Kraft Cheese Plant in Canton.
While living in Madrid, Elsie was a member of the American Field Service Foreign Student Exchange committee at the Madrid-Waddington Central School. She also served as secretary of the Town of Madrid Planning Board for several years.
Upon her husband’s retirement in 1988, the couple moved to New Hartford where they have since resided.
Throughout her life, Elsie loved gardening, crafts, and her family.
Elsie is survived by her husband of 55 years, George, of New Hartford; one daughter and son-in-law, Barbara and Anthony Covais of Fernandina Beach, Fla.; three granddaughters and their husbands, Tammy and Richard Loz, Teresa and Mark Cavanaugh, Candace and Dennis O’Neill; 11 great grandchildren; one great great granddaughter; one sister, Evelyn Miller of Jefferson.
A Funeral Service will be offered at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 24, at the Connell, Dow & Deysenroth Funeral Home, 82 Chestnut St., Cooperstown, with James Atwell of Fly Creek officiating.
The Service of Committal and Burial will be held later this spring in the Fly Creek Valley Cemetery.
Friends may call at the funeral home from 7-8:30 p.m. on Friday evening, Jan. 23, when Elsie’s family will be in attendance.
As an alternative to flowers, expressions of sympathy in the form of memorial gifts may be made to the National Kidney Foundation, 30 East 33rd Street, New York, NY 10016, 1-800-622-9010, www.kidney.org.
Funeral arrangements are under the direction of the Connell, Dow & Deysenroth Funeral Home in Cooperstown.

Raymon G. Davie, 77; Science Teacher

COOPERSTOWN – Raymon G. Davie Jr., age 77, died on Monday, Jan. 19, 2009, at home with his family.
Born Sept. 7, 1931, in Raleigh, N.C., he was the son of the late Raymon and Mary Elizebeth (Morris) Davie.
He graduated from Oneonta High School in 1949 before entering the Air Force, where he proudly served his country in the Strategic Air Command.
He was a graduate of Oneonta State Teachers College and taught physical science and biology in public schools in Sidney and Ardsley in Westchester County, before retiring in 1987. The Davies moved to Cooperstown later that year.
Fondly known as “Buz,” he enjoyed sailing, chess, jazz, woodworking, literature and political debate.
He is survived by Sonja (Thorsland) Davie, his wife of 52 years; a daughter, Lori Price of Leesburg, Va., and her husband John, and a son, Stephen Davie of Chittenango, and his wife Sharon; six cherished grandchildren, Jack Price, and Kyle, Ryan, Peyton, Dylan and Keelin Davie; a sister, Jean (Davie) Fieg, of Greensboro, N.C., a brother, Norman Davie, of Bouckville; nieces Judy (Fieg) Kestner, Diana (Fieg) Monaco and Phyllis Fieg; nephews Bob, Jeff, Greg and Paul Davie, and several cousins.
A memorial service will be held in the spring.
Memorial contributions may be made to NRA-ILA, National Rifle Association of America, 11250 Waples Mill Road, Fairfax, VA 22030-9400.

Labels: 01-23-09, Obituaries

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