The Freemans Journal - Cooperstowns Newspaper Since 1808

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

HOSPITAL TALKS: Fox Hospital spokeswoman Maggie Barnes said Oneonta’s Fox Hospital is “completely” committed to independence despite its trustees decision to discuss cooperation with Bassett Healthcare. With its president, Bill Streck, out of town until Friday, Oct. 10, Bassett offered no comment.

HEADED FOR HALL: CCS teacher and coach Thomas Cannistra is one of seven who will be inducted into SUNY Oneonta’s Athletic Hall of Fame at 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, during that school’s Homecoming weekend.

SAFELY HOME: Frank and Ann Capozza’s two soldiering children are both safely back in the States from Iraq. Dan is with the Second Infantry Division in Fort Lewis, Washington, and not due to be sent again to Iraq until next August. Allison Flannigan is still with the 101st Airborne, but in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and expecting her parents’ first grandchild in March. Her husband, Steven, a medical services officer, is taking the Captain Career Course in San Antonio. All are captains.

FALL CLEANUP: Otsego County’s fall cleanup will be Mondays, Oct. 20 and 27, and Thursdays, Oct. 23 and 30. All transfer stations will be open from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. those days for furniture, rugs, carpeting, mattresses and box springs, and other hard-to-get-rid-of items. Visit www.otsegocounty.com/solidwaste for full details.

A HIT? Fall Out Boy, the pop-punk band featured on a recent Rolling Stone cover, has issued a new song, “Headfirst Slide into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet.” It’s expected to be a hit.

Labels: 10-10-08, Cooperstown and Around, Front Page

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A Day At The Races

Labels: 10-10-08, Front Page, Images, Pit Run

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Weekend's Best Bets

Take Me Out To The HoF, Much More

All weekend long Make Tracks! at the Glimmerglass State Park Family Trail Weekend. Stop by the park office between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and receive a bag of Glimmerglass Trails Mix and an interpretive map of the Beaver Pond Trail.
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Experience a train robbery as you watch the fall foliage fly by, after departing from the Milford Depot, East Main Street, Milford, at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 11. The spirit of the Old West is alive with gun fights and explosions.
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Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the classic, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” by heading over to The National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum at 1 p.m. on Saturday for a performance and booksigning by Jerry Silverman.
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Saturday night, enjoy a roast pork dinner at Cooperstown United Methodist Church. Dinner will be served between 4:30 -7 p.m. and will include potato casserole, spinach salad, apple sauce, rolls and pumpkin upside-down cake.
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Middlefield is having a Fall Festival & Craft Show 10 a.m.-4 p.m on Sunday. Visit the Middlefield School House Museum on County Highway 35 to taste delicious foods and partake in the fun.
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Watch something new at the Fall Foliage Sheepdog Trial, 12 -4 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Bring chairs and blankets and observe the dogs gathering sheep and leading them around Clark Field on Beaver Meadow Road.

Labels: 10-10-08, Glimmerglass, Weekend's Best Bets

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Labels: 10-10-08, Glimmerglass, Native Daughters of Cooperstown

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Gallodoro Silent After 8 Decades

By JIM KEVLIN

ONEONTA

Saturday, Oct. 18, he was booked at Justin’s on Lark Street in Albany.
Friday, Nov. 28, he planned to perform at the Bainbridge Theater.
But fate intervened, and sax legend Al Gallodoro will have his final appearance at 11 a.m. Friday, Oct. 10, at the old Chestnut Street Theater, now Oneonta Theater 1 & 2, where friends will mourn his passing and celebrate his life.
Gallodoro, who died Saturday, Oct. 4 – as word spread, the City of Oneonta’s Centennial Parade was dedicated in his honor – was doing his thing, playing his music, almost to the very end.
Two weeks ago, he performed at Corning’s Jazz & Harvest Festival, “The Girl From Ipanema,” “I Got It Bad (and That Ain’t Good,” and “Cherokee,” that demanding jazz staple.
“We always had a joke about this song – I probably shouldn’t say this,” said Joann Chmielowski, his long-time accompanist and devoted friend. “He’d say, ‘You want me to play that; that’s going to kill me.’”
As it was, he began failing at the end of that concert and never recovered.
“He was born with the horns” – clarinet, saxophone, bass clarinet – “and he died with the horns, almost literally,” said his friend. “How many people can say, ‘I did what I loved my whole life’.”
Al was born in Chicago on June 20, 1913, to Antonio and Frances Gallodoro, Al spent his childhood in Alabama and New Orleans and was playing professionally by age 13, meaning his career spanned 83 years.
It’s a U.S. record, said Joann, possibly an international one, although she has no way to prove it.
He eventually moved to New York, where his longest association (nearly four decades) was with the “King of Jazz” Paul Whiteman; Al’s brother, Frank, is the last surviving member of Whiteman’s orchestra.
Musicians who played with him locally – Sal Salvaggio and Rene Prins among them – remarked on his ability to play both jazz and classical music, and that characterized his whole career.
His played for Isham Jones, Arturo Toscanini, Leopold Stokowski, Alfredo Antonini, Leonard Bernstein, Andre Kostelanetz, Johnny Green, Tutti Camarata, Arthur Fiedler, Percy Faith, Skitch Henderson and Dr. Frank Black.
And George Gershwin, Victor Borge, Dina Shore, Sid Caesar, Raphael Mendez, Les Paul, Bob Hope, Edgar Bergen, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, Mario Lanza, Frank Sinatra and Milton Berle.
He also recorded many movie and cartoon soundtracks.
He had music composed for him: “The Gallodoro Serenade,” by Ferde Grofè, composer of the “Grand Canyon Suite” and “Mississippi Suite.”
Moving up to Oneonta a quarter century ago at the invitation of his daughter, Rita, he immediately joined Local 443 of the Musicians’ Union and soon was playing in Prins’ Oneonta Community Band and with the Catskill Stompers.
“He had incredible stamina,” said Salvaggio, a musician and Cooperstown Central School music teacher who often found himself “in the pit” with Al at Orpheus presentations.
“...He always played with a lot of feeling. He was a musician’s musician, the type of a person who could play in any style and do it convincingly.”
He became a local fixture, receiving an honorary doctorate from Hartwick College in 2005, (a year after CBS’ “Sunday Morning” had him on a segment.) When the Sego Cafe closed earlier this year, Al performed at the requiem.
But it’s unlikely anyone around here knew him better than Joann Chmielowski, who called herself “a fan gone berzerk” when she heard him play at the old Willow Grouse east of the city.
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” she remembered. “This is Oneonta, and I’m hearing this world class ... I was totally blown away by his talent.”

Labels: 10-10-08, Al Gallodoro, Front Page

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MSGE Clock Ticking

Springfield Planning Board Accepts Formal Application

By JIM KEVLIN

SPRINGFIELD CENTER

The impossible has started seeming slightly less so in recent days, as MSG Entertainment’s plans for a three-day, 75,000-fan music festival in East Springfield has gone from talk, however detailed, to the first hard documents and officials steps.
Before a packed gym in the Community Center last Thursday, Oct. 9, the town Planning Board – three members remained mute – accepted MSG Entertainment’s application for a mega-festival – it has been compared to Austin City Limits in the Texas capital and Bonnaroo, an hour north of Nashville – on 1,000 acres south of Route 20 between Route 31 and Continental Road.
What’s envisioned is a sizeable site, circled by a dirt road that would allow entry from any point by emergency, medical or law-enforcement teams as necessary anytime during the event, according to a point-by-point elucidation by MSG Entertainment Vice President Don Simpson. The road will also allow access for supplies, or for trash removal.
There would be three stages – the festival would include rock, folk, jazz and a range of other genres – at points of a triangle within the property. The stages would be aimed inwards, toward a granite outcropping in the center of the property, minimizing off-site noise.
Permanent buildings would include two barns “that look like barns and are painted like barns” to store equipment, tents, kiosks and so on during the 362 off days a year. Due to input from local emergency officials, there will be a permanent building for a medical clinic in the center of the property, supplemented by tents at the periphery.
Amenities on site will include campgrounds, beer gardens, and a sculpture area and tent for local artists.
Sixty acres have been identified to the north of Route 20 and east of Beckingham Road for 30,000 cars. The planners discovered there once was a culvert under Route 20 to allow cows to to graze on either side; they hope to revive that tunnel so fest-goers won’t have to cross Route 20.
Simpson also revealed plans are to install a helipad for emergency use, something he hadn’t mentioned earlier because, he said, it might have been one more things for opponents to seize upon. “We’ve always had it; we will have it,” he said.
At the start of his presentation, Simpson stood before an easel bearing a vacant map, and pulled an overlay down onto it that showed where the prospective activities and buildings would be. When he was done, he flipped the overlay back. Presto, a vacant map again.
His point: When the revellers go home, the result will be “the green and beautiful vista you have now.”
The presentation over, Planning Board member Bill Harmon asked whether MSG Entertainment had considered placing conservation easements on the property so the public can be assured this isn’t just the beginning of something bigger.
“People need to be assured we’re going to be consistently pressured to increase the size of the venue,” he said. (Harman, Bill Staley and Elizabeth Salerno didn’t vote to accept the plan, but didn’t vote “nay” either.”
The Planning Board’s acceptance of MSG Entertainment’s plans – in effect, it accepted a “draft scoping document” – starts the clock. The plans may be viewed at the town library in the Community Center – Building Official Henry Miller said people who want a copy e-mailed to them should e-mail him at crb@msn.com – and public comment will be received until Oct. 27.
The Planning Board has scheduled a public comment meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15, at the Community Center, but written testimony may be sent in or dropped off as well.
Mary Clarke, the Planning Board chairman, explained the “draft scoping document,” which must be completed by early December, is a “table of contents” for the material that must be developed and included in the Environmental Impact Statement that must then be prepared.
An EIS is called for in the state Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA, called “seeker”), which is the main vehicle in New York State to regulate environmental and other impacts of large projects.
Meanwhile, Simpson was back in town Tuesday, Oct. 7, to answer the public’s questions, although the meeting was subdued and routine.

Labels: 10-10-08, Front Page, MSG, MSGE, Music Festival, Springfield

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Brookwood Point’s Sale Challenged

4 Bring Complaint Against Foundation

Four opponents of the Cook Foundation’s prospective sale of now-protected and for-now publicly accessible Brookwood Point have filed a complaint with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
The complaint – brought by Ronald Bishop, James Dean, Adrian Kuzminski and Michael Whaling – asks for a temporary restraining order to prevent the sale of the land to neighbor Richard Hanna, who plans to tear down the old manor house and build a new home, until it can be determined whether the Cook Foundation trustees have lived up to their responsibilities.
The complaint says the Cook Foundation directors, in their plans to sell the Otsego-Lake-side property, are flouting their proscribed duties of “care, loyalty and obedience” in carrying out the wishes of the late Robert Cook, whose trust – its full name is “The Cook Foundation for the Preservation and Beautification of Cooperstown and Otsego Lake, Inc.” – was established at his death in 1985.
The four signed the complaint “around my diningroom table” a week ago Tuesday, Oct. 7, Bishop said, and Dean sent it by certified mail the following morning to Cuomo – Assistant Attorney General Michael Danaher Jr., a lawyer in Cuomo’s Binghamton office, would handle the matter – and the state Department of Law’s Charities Bureau in New York City.
The complaint’s allegations are broken into three parts:
• Duty of Care – After the completion of a “Conditions Assessment Report for the Brookwood Estate,” partly funded by the state, the trustees “followed none of the recommendations,” and the carriage house has since collapsed. “We submit that this strategy of waiting for the old structures to collapse is inconsistent with the Cook Foundation’s mission.”
• Duty of Loyalty – It contends that three of the Cook Foundation trustees were donors to Hanna’s campaign – he is running against U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-24 – while negotiations were underway to sell the property, and “there is no evidence” that they recused themselves.
• Duty of Obedience – By “spending donated resources on legal fees” connected with the sale, they “rejected the wishes of their founder and placed in jeopardy the real property he intended to preserve for public enjoyment.”
Meanwhile, the Cook Foundation trustees met Sunday afternoon, Oct. 5, but chairman Robert Poulson said it was not a formal meeting and “no decisions were made.”
Another meeting it planned in two weeks to further review the matter.

Labels: 10-10-08, Brookwood, Cook Foundation, Front Page

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Springfield May Not Want Music Fest, But Otsego County Should

EDITORIAL

One of the challenges Otsego County faces is that it – we?– don’t know what it wants to be.
Sure, there are many niches with a pretty clear idea of what they want, individually.
The America’s Most Perfect Village™ crowd would like to see Cooperstown stay pretty much the way it is. Likewise, the other big institutions – the colleges, the hospitals, the banks, Springbrook, Pathfinder Village, New York Central Mutual – have their own internal imperatives independent of what Otsego County as a whole may require.
There’s a farm community trying to find its way from dairy to something new to, with rising gasoline costs, perhaps back to dairy. There’s a strong pro-environment lobby, for lack of a better word: the OCCA, Otsego 2000, the Land Trust, Sustainable Otsego, the D-O Audubon Society.
We have a sliver of wealthy people, primarily around Otsego Lake, something of a middle class, mostly in Oneonta, and widespread poverty; median family income countywide is $33,444, or 20 percent below the national media of $41,994.
The towns tend to be parochial. And Otsego County government isn’t vision-driven; it’s mostly focused on meeting its mandates in the least-expensive way possible.
The Otsego County Chamber’s big-picture issue is broadband Internet access; there’s a malaise about anything being accomplished in high-tax, regulation-intense New York State.
But the niches don’t serve the whole.
While the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce is in the midst of a search for an executive director, its president, Marc Kingsley – to his credit – has been making calls to Coffee County, Tenn., seeking to determine if its experience with the Bonnaroo Music Festival means Otsego County should encourage Madison Square Garden Entertainment’s plans for a three-day, 75,000-fan music festival in East Springfield.
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Through those calls, Kingsley, who also serves on the Otsego County Chamber board of directors, would have discovered a number of things:
• Economic Impact: Bonnaroo – it draws 80,000 people; the Springfield Music & Arts Festival is aiming for 75,000 – contributes $20 million a year to the Coffee County economy through, primarily, sales tax. It also allows civic groups to staff the concession stands and pays them 9 percent of the take, about $300,000 a year.
• Traffic: Bonnaroo is five miles from I-24, accessible from there by a two-lane road; there were huge traffic snarls Year One, but since then a temporary Interstate exit has smoothed the flow. East Springfield is 13 miles from I-90’s Canajoharie exit, but is accessible from multiple other exits, as well as I-88. The routes to most concert venues go from four lanes to two to even one as the crowds approach, the MSGE developers say; Route 20 from the east actually expands from two lanes to four as the site nears.
• Crime: Bonnaroo – and MSGE, according to plans – has its own security force that polices the grounds and, annually, arrests about 100 people (out of 80,000), mostly on drug charges, and turns them over to local authorities. The crowd, though, is described as “aging hippies” and boisterous young people and even families, no one looking for a fight.
• Environment: As was observed when 75,000 people converged on Cooperstown in 2007 for Cal Ripken Jr.’s National Baseball Hall of Fame induction, the Monday after it’s as if Bonnaroo never happened. The 500 acres where it occurs – in East Springfield, that would be more than 1,000 acres – are still hayed.
• Noise: Coffee County Mayor Dave Pennington said nobody beyond the immediate vicinity even knows that it’s there. Locally, MSGE’s plans to have the three main stages facing inward toward a granite outcropping. Certainly, folks in East Springfield, the hamlet of Springfield and along Continental and East Lake roads will hear the music; beyond that, probably few. The Bonnaroo promoters give $1,500 VIP tickets to the neighbors, who either attend and enjoy or sell the tickets and go away for the weekend.
Here’s an intriguing idea: Mayor Pennington said he hopes Bonaroo will spawn a local music-production industry, one of the few industries that can’t be sent overseas. Since Bonnaroo arrived, the Louvin Brothers have moved to the county, which is an hour south of Nashville, and so has Charlie Allen, who plans to bring his studio operations there this year.
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Which brings us back to the start.
In the past few years, SUNY Oneonta has developed the second- or third-largest music-production department in the nation, with more than 600 majors at any given time. You can see how beneficial the synergies would be between MSG Entertainment – one of the largest concert producers in the world – and Otsego County, in terms of not just economics but – properly planned and sited – quality of life.
As Robert Barstow, SUNY music-production department chair, points out, we have at least as many assets that Branson, Mo., had before the C&W industry discovered it, and arguably more: delightful summer weather, proximity to population centers and airports, and so on.
The question: Can we – as a community, not just a conglomeration of interests – form a working consensus that would allow us to pursue this opportunity?
How can we optimize the benefits of a Springfield Music & Arts Festival for the county as a whole?
If local resistance in the Town of Springfield is too strong, or the site lacking in some profound way, is there a preferable site, perhaps off I-88?
Is there a way to facilitate a partnership between MSG Entertainment and SUNY Oneonta for the benefit of both?
Living in our delightful county, the immediate response to anything new is, leave us alone, don’t change anything.
That said, there’s potential here for something big and beneficial for a chunk of the county, something that – done right – would miniminally impact everyone else.
County government, in combination with the Otsego Chamber, is the natural entity to take the lead on this. As it happens, county Rep. Jim Johnson, R-Otsego, the Oneonta native who made a fortune in developing Central New York Radio, is chairman of the county Board of Representatives’ Intergovernmental Affairs Committee (and a pretty good guitar player).
This would be an ideal task for him to undertake.

Labels: 10-10-08, Editorial, Opinion

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Letters to the Editor

Senator Seward Truly A Friend Of The Farmer

To the Editor:
As a farmer, I feel Senator Seward is the only choice on Election Day. He has proven time and again that he is in touch with the agricultural needs of Upstate New York and has come to the aid of farmers on frequent occasions.
When dairy farmers were facing dire straits due to a drop in milk prices, Jim Seward and his colleagues in the Senate initiated the Dairy Investment Act, providing $30 million for those who needed it the most. He expanded funding for important safety programs, like the tractor-rollover prevention, to protect those working the land.
Senator Seward also helped clean up unnecessary red tape through the ag-building-code exemption, and he voted for legislation to reverse a federal regulation that forces farmers and other small businesses to pay taxes upfront for tax-free fuel sold in New York State.
Senator Seward has also supported state funding for the Center for Dairy Excellence, state Apple Growers and Maple associations, along with Taste New York.
Most recently, Senator Seward was named to the New York State Farm Bureau’s Circle of Friends for his positive voting record on issues impacting agriculture.
Farmers mean a great deal to the region on the economic and environmental fronts, but many are being squeezed from the business. Senator Seward has worked to save the family farm, and he is needed in Albany to stand up for those who work the land.
HUGH HENDERSON
Oneonta

Law Will Decide Whether Proposed Music Festival Happens

To the Editor:
I’d like to disabuse some myths involving the three-day music fest that Madison Square Gardens is proposing to put in Springfield.
The first is that, with green pro-MSG signs popping up like dandelions on the lawns, stating that no one wants the fest is visibly incorrect.
The next is the pretense that a vote in the town will prove no one wants it. 300+ people signed a petition against it. 300+ prove that a majority do not want it.
It is my understanding that between a third and two-thirds of the signers are not on Springfield’s voting roll.
In case this confuses anyone let me explain. In the town in high summer there are:
1) People who own houses and vote somewhere else.
2) Spouses and families of people who own houses and who also vote somewhere else.
3) People who own property and vote in Springfield.
4) Spouses and families of those people who do own property here and are on our voting rolls.
5) People who rent and vote in Springfield.
6) And, finally, there is one very interested person, at leas, who does not own a house in Springfield but does own property and who votes elsewhere.
If a vote at the time of the November election were to be held the people in classes 1, 2, and 6 would be excluded. But to be fair, all of these people have an interest in what happens in Springfield, all should have some say.
I am glad, I think we should all be very happy, that this country and our town has laws that cover these situations. About the first thing that one is told when one goes to the county-run class for people on planning boards is that a planning board member’s personal bias, whims, opinions cannot be used to permit or deny a building plan.
If it can be proven that a member of a planning board has a bias and has not recluse him/herself from a critical vote, that planning board member puts him/herself in personal legal jeopardy.
He/she does not necessarily put the village or town at risk of paying for a legal defense, but that person personally.
Without due process for any person or town to remove or reduce the monetary value of private property against the will of the owners of that property is not legal in the United States of America.
GAIL LARSON
East Springfield

Conservatives Brought Us To Sorry State; But There Are Liberal Solutions

To the Editor:
Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush had already bankrupted America before the Housing Bubble and deregulation.
On his first day in office, Ronald Reagan inherited a national debt of less than $1 trillion. Ignoring reports that the Soviet conservatives had bankrupted themselves by injudiciously spending on their military, Reagan stupidly did the Republican thing by grossly expanding his military budget.
He lowered taxes on the rich (Republican idea) from a maximum of 80 percent to 25 percent. The United States and the Soviets lost the Cold War.
Bill Clinton and Al Gore paid down the national debt by about $350 billion and eventually balanced the budget.
George W. Bush inherited a surplus. Since he was stupid or stubborn, he ignored what Reagan did to the budget by lowering taxes on the rich. He did the same and deficits soared. To cover deficits, we sold bonds to various countries which paid holders interest each year. The national debt is an astounding $9.6 trillion or $9 trillion which is directly attributed to Reagan and G. W. Bush’s management and conservative Republican philosophy.
To put the incredible Reagan and Bush debt in perspective, at 4 percent interest on $9 trillion, it is costing an astounding $1 billion a day to pay the interest to the National Debt bond holders. The Reagan-Bush debt is 15 times the $700 billion bailout.
The present Conservative administration has allowed the free enterprise system to flaunt prudent rules designed to keep the financial system operating in a fair and honest manner. We have plenty of regulations but they don’t work if G.W. Bush and the Republicans won’t enforce them.
The Housing Bubble was created by Republican Alan Greenspan. When G.W. Bush came into office, the national interest rate was at 6.2 percent and by the end of the year, it was 2 percent. Then 1 percent for well over a year.
It was a financial Merry Christmas. People went crazy buying property or refinancing mortgages. In this environment, greedy brokers sold unsafe mortgages on flimsy credit. Most should be in jail right now.
Conservative Republicans have triggered a planet-wide recession. A depression is next.We are totally broke. The Liberals have a few ideas to regain financial footing:
1. Stop the war for financial reasons. The proper group to handle war is the United Nations. If we all got together we could change the U.N. Constitution so they had military responsibility for world problems.
Since no one can afford a military, the U.N. would take our military off our hands. There’s $400-500 billion a year savings.
2. Since we spend more than twice as much as other countries on medical care, there would be maybe a trillion or so savings a year with socialized medicine. Other semi-socialized countries have in some respects just as good medicine. Doctors would have to cooperate.
America is in a plague of bacteria that are resistant to any known antibacterial medicine. Because of their rules and regulations, countries with socialized medicine are far less troubled.
3. Socialized education is far more efficient. Semi-socialized countries in Europe have socialized education and they out do our students every time in international tests. We are usually at the bottom of the list.
4. We should kick commercial farms out of agriculture. Family farms deserve the market. Republicans foolishly fooled Congress into giving them tax breaks to turn corn (a food ingredient and livestock food) into ethanol. The process uses almost as much energy as it produces.
Cornell University knew this in the very beginning. Diverting corn to ethanol created the disastrous rise in food products. It’s all the Republicans’ fault.
5. Since it’s cheaper to drill for oil in the ANWR Reserve, the Democrats should give up protecting the caribou and a few birds and sell valuable oil leases there. They should let them drill 100 yards off Miami Beach. Don’t give any presents to the oil companies. Exxon used 1/3 of an oil subsidy to repurchase its own stock.
6. Since rich people generally provide a large portion of the funds for the Republican Party, they are contributory to our present financial disaster.
It is only fair and appropriate that they pay an 80 percent tax on their earnings like the good old days. There would be 10 progressive steps below that. Every possible deduction should be taken away. Big government can be cheap and apparently it’s superior to free enterprise in most cases. No one should make more than $2 million per year.
7. The Justice System is a mess. The jury system is inefficient, expensive and subject to manipulation. Some Europeans have professional jurors. They get things right most of the time and don’t take much time doing it. Some murderers would be on the gurney getting their last injection within a month.
8. Energy in the Reagan-G.W. Bush presidencies has been a disaster. In Reagan’s first day in office, he ordered Jimmy Carter’s solar collectors torn off the White House roof. That’s Republican energy leadership for the next 28 years.
SUVs, pickup trucks, big cars and so-called crossovers and hybrids of the same are garbage because they weigh too much. The only cars sold in America should weigh no more than 1800 pounds, have a small turbo diesel engine and would easily get over 50 miles per gallon hauling 5-6 people. You can buy one today.
9. 750,000 jobs lost this year? That’s free enterprise responding to the market. Republicans helped send millions of jobs overseas and made a law that said their profits could remain there untaxed.
10. For voters it has been totally proved that our present disaster is 100% caused by Greenspan and the derelict Bush Administration.
If the Federal Reserve interest rate was 6.2 percent at the start of Bush’s first term, how could Bill Clinton’s administration be involved in the housing bubble? 6.2 percent is no housing bubble. 1 percent and 2 percent interest rates kept in place for years created a bubble. The mortgage brokers who defrauded large numbers of home buyers should be in jail.
The free-enterprise Republican lenders who accepted this toxic paper should default to the government and we could have a largely socialized financial system. Let’s put Wall Street under our thumbs. Liberals and semi-socialists will save you from this Republican disaster.
BOB JOYCE
Cooperstown

Want To Know Obama, McCain? Read Autobiographies

To the Editor:
“Ecce Homo.”
In these contentious political times, I would not venture to advise people how to vote. That is a matter for the informed conscience. The presidential candidates themselves will give you multiple reasons to vote for them, reasons largely crafted by advisors, handlers, speechwriters. And then there are the all-knowing talking heads on television and the editorial writers.
However, I do have advice to offer. Read the autobiographies of each of the candidates.
“Dreams of My Father,” by Barack Obama, is a thoughtful and determined search for identity by a man of mixed race, raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, a man who earned degrees from prestigious Ivy League universities, and whose search led him to Kenya. He subsequently rose through the rough and tumble of Chicago politics to serve in the U.S. Senate.
“Faith of My Fathers,” by John McCain, is a gritty tale of privilege and deprivation, driven by the ingrained identity that comes from being raised in an itinerant military family and in the tradition of duty, honor and family, who, after 5 1/2 years in a Vietnamese prison, has served for 26 years in both houses of Congress.
Both books offer compelling insights into the characters of their authors. In each case, “behold the man.”
WILLIAM DORNBURGH
Cooperstown

Lambert Practiced In 3 Courts

To the Editor:
I want to take a few minutes to tell you, the voters, why I support John Lambert for Otsego County Judge in the upcoming election.
John lives in the Village of Cooperstown with his wife and three children; his family-oriented, conservative values make him the perfect fit for this position.
John is the only candidate with experience in all three county courts, and as a chief assistant district attorney, John has prosecuted many violent and white collar crime cases.
As a life-long resident of Otsego County, he is keenly familiar with the needs of our community which will ensure that we maintain and improve upon our quality of life. His unbiased decisions on the bench will benefit all residents of our county.
John is not just another politician running for office, he is involved in several community activities and in his down to earth, personable manner, can often be found walking to work while stopping often to answer questions and just speak with residents of our community.
Don’t just take my word for it, please take the time to look up John’s record and I’m sure on election day you will join me in supporting John Lambert for Otsego County Judge.
RICHARD D. ABBATE
Cooperstown

Be Above Politics: Vote For Best

To the Editor:
Hon. Judge Jhilmil “Jill” Ghaleb (nee’ Dey) was the keynote speaker at the Sept. 11 Remembrance event held at the Otsego County Courthouse. The other speakers set the tone of this emotional day for the well-attended rite. Afterwards, I met many unique individuals. One gentleman approached me, introduced himself, and said he would be contesting my daughter in the upcoming election for the county judgeship. We chatted for a few minutes, and then he left.
Election time is a good time to express yourself and your choice. It is a time to discuss issues and motivation for team work. Also, it is a time that spills over organized hatred, threats and riots.
I witnessed that in 1968 when I was on the academic staff at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. I watched carefully over the years how politics and misinformation, in the age of high tech IT, can put wrong people in very powerful positions.
Sometimes they may not want to take their hats off, but their party wants it. Sometimes it may be a wrong move on the part of their “brotherhood” or “sisterhood” to have someone for their vested interest. But that’s the people’s choice and their right.
So please vote. As a politicians’ spokesman said on May 29, 2008, about a unanimous Senate appointment, that we have to be above politics for the best of the county (referring to Otsego). And that goes for the country too, I am sure.
BISHU N. DEY, Ph.D., CAS
West Winfield

Labels: 10-10-08, Letters to the Editor, Opinion

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Bound Volumes

175 YEARS AGO

Manure is Wealth – Some farmers on Long Island, known to have labored and toiled hard, have continued yearly to fall in arrears until they have commenced buying manure. Fifty-six cents are given per car man load at the landing, for the apparently worthless dirt swept from the streets. This, applied at the rate of 20 loads per acre produces wealth. The very farmers who could not obtain a living by using only manure made on their farms have in a very few years, not only freed their farms from encumbrances, but purchased others in addition, and are now from the yearly profit of their farms, putting money out at interest.
October 14, 1833

150 YEARS AGO

The Comet continues to increase in brilliancy and size. It will be nearest the earth on October 9 at which time its brilliancy will be nearly three times as great as on the twenty-third of September, and its distance from us about fifty-two millions of miles. Its “narrative” (the tail) is fifteen millions of miles long.
October 8, 1858

125 YEARS AGO

We learn from Sheriff Kelly that Doctor Brush, chief assistant at the Utica Insane Asylum, gave Mrs. Sargent’s case a thorough examination and then called in Doctor Gray. They both gave it as their opinion that her mental condition was such as to demand treatment at that institution – that she was liable to become worse at any time – and that the verdict of the jury in her case was right.

George D. Hoag, an old gentleman residing in Milford, was last Saturday driving on Chestnut Street in this village, and against the remonstrance of his wife, who was with him in the wagon, endeavored to cross the railroad track in advance of the approaching train. The rear of the wagon was struck by the engine, the vehicle smashed, the occupants thrown out, and Mrs. Hoag severely injured. She was carried to the house of Mr. James Austin, and kindly provided for till she could be taken home the next day.
October 13, 1883

100 YEARS AGO

Personal – Plans are being made for extensive improvement in the Hotel Fenimore. The entire building will be overhauled and renovated and an elevator, electric lights and steam heating plant will be installed. After these improvements are completed, the Fenimore will be strictly first class, as comfortable and convenient in winter as in summer, and one of the finest all-the-year hotels outside of the large cities. Waldo C. Johnston has moved from the Cory house on Pioneer to the Peaselee house on Lake street. Mrs. W.H. Collins will occupy the Cory house. Illustrated songs have been added to the programme of Moving Pictures given each evening in Bowne Opera House.
October 8, 1908

75 YEARS AGO

At the recent meeting of the session of the Presbyterian Church in this village, Mrs. Edward C. Petrie, wife of the pastor, suggested that the elders retire to the attic of the manse where it was known that a swarm of bees had been located during the summer. The churchmen went aloft and Dr. McDonald, taking a flashlight, climbed the ladder and reached in through an opening into an old chimney flue. There he soon discovered with his hand gobs of the most delicious high grade honey which James Hall, a bee expert, pronounced to be of superior quality. It has since been reported that at least 600 pounds of the golden product of the bees was found inside the disused flue.
October 11, 1933

50 YEARS AGO

A stringent set of rules for the conduct of legalized Bingo games, announced last week by the State Lottery Commission, have been received by Town Clerk John A. Shipman of Cooperstown. The regulations are designed to keep the game out of the hands of racketeers. The Town of Otsego voted overwhelmingly in favor of legalized Bingo at a special referendum last June. Application blanks for licenses which are required before Bingo games can be operated, have been received by Mr. Shipman but none have been issued as yet within the township.
October 8, 1958

25 YEARS AGO

Four women plan to apply early next month to join the Cooperstown Fire Department which currently has no women members. Two of the women are state certified as emergency medical technicians and those two and likely one other would like to eventually serve on the emergency squad. The fourth would like to be a firefighter. “Women have some special things to offer in terms of emergency squad work, especially in dealing with other women and small children,” said Margaret McGown, one of the four who will be applying. “The time has come.”
October 12, 1983

10 YEARS AGO

Locals – Gretchen Sorin, director and professor of museum studies at the State University College at Oneonta’s Cooperstown Graduate Program, was the guest speaker at Thursday’s meeting of the Oneonta Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Ned Marcalus, son of Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas R. Marcalus of Cooperstown and a graduate of Blair Academy, recently began his studies as a first-year student at Hamilton College. Cherry Valley’s barber-in-residence Larry Thompson, started the month off right with a move of his shop to new quarters. The new shop is to be found across Genesee Street from his former location. Look for the barber pole.
October 9, 1998

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: 10-10-08, Bound Volumes, Columns

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Locals

M.J. and Steve Harris hosted representatives of the Community Foundation of South Central New York Wednesday, Oct. 1, at their Town of Otsego home, where the visitors were introduced to representatives of dozens of Otsego County non-profits that may be eligible for grants from the Binghamton-based entity. In recent years, as its endowment grew from $3 million to $18 million, the foundation has expanded its franchise into Otsego and Delaware counties; a new round of grants are due to be announced in the next two weeks. From left are Foundation board member Callie Demtrak, board chairman John Foley, hostess M.J. Harris, Executive Director Diane Brown, Development Officer Donna Hill, board member Elysia Gudas, and Christopher Demtrak, MD. For more about the foundation, visit www.cfscny.org.vFrom left: Board member Callie Demtrak, Board Chair John Foley, MJ, Executive Director Diane Brown, Development Officer Donna Hill, Board member Elysia Gudas, and Christopher Demtrak, M. D.

Cooperstown Central School’s SADD/Reality Check Club picked up thousands of cigarette butts from village parks on Saturday, Oct. 4, part of an ongoing campaign to create tobacco-free parks. The “evidence” was being turned over to the village Board of Park Commissioners. Front row, from left, are Aidan Macaluso, Matt Frevele, Tom Hogan and Chris Hogan. Back row, from left, are Ryen Martinez, Quinn Bernegger, Elizabeth Kenison, Linda Kenison and Julia Levandowski.

Patricia Tucker, Joseph Furlan Marry

Patricia Tucker and Joseph Furlan were married on June 7, 2008, at Colonial Ridge Golf Course, Laurens, where the bride had learned to golf with the groom. The Rev. Carol Rumenknapp performed the double ring ceremony.
The wedding party was transported in golf carts to the ceremony at the sixth tee. As the couple entered the reception that followed in the club house, they entered beneath crossed golf clubs.
The bride is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alton Tucker of Afton. The groom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Furlan of Milford.
The bride wore a strapless white dress with red beaded trim and a flowing red beaded train, and carried cascading red roses.
The maid of honor was Beth Zine. Best man was Bryan Gayner.
Bridesmaids included Heather Stevens, Valerie Furlan (she was also the soloist) and Jamie Lynn Metzler. Flower girls were Cheyenne Stevens, Gabriella Furlan, Maryleena Furlan and Jillian Furlan. Ringbearer was Brodie Emerson.
Ushers were Steve Banks, Frank Furlan and John Furlan. Junior groomsmen were Colby Stevens, Daniel Banks, Steven Banks and Nicholas Loomis.
The bride is employed as a waitress at the Double Day Café. The groom is employed by Furlan & Sons Construction.

NYSHA, Farmers’ Museum Recognize 14 For Longevity

Fourteen long-time employees of The Farmers’ Museum and The New York State Historical Association were to be honored at the annual Recognition Luncheon Friday, Oct. 10, at The Otesaga.
Jane Forbes Clark, The Farmers’ Museum chairman, and Anne G. Older, NYSHA chairman, were to present the awards. Steve Elliott, president of both entities, emceed.
Beverly Olmsted, administrative assistant, was to receive a 40-year service award; Wayne Wright, NYSHA Library associate director, a 30-year-award, and Claire Ottman, Farmers’ Museum historical interpreter, 25 years.
Garry Aney and Doris Lange, also historical interpreters, and Eunice Cooper, Fenimore Art Museum teacher, were honored for 20 years.
The 15-year honorees were M. Joan Haskell, Farmers’ Museum admissions clerk; Jo Mish, Todd’s General Store manager; Barbara Fischer, senior director of human resources; Scott Rathbun, lead custodian, and Karen Wyckoff, administrative assistant.
Ten-year honorees were John Weber, historical interpreter; Garet Livermore, vice president for education, and Chris Mattson, facilities coordinator.

Brian Horner Album Ready

Saxophonist Brian Horner, CCS ‘95, and pianist Elizabeth Avery will release an album, “Serenade: Music for Saxophone & Piano,” Tuesday, Oct. 14, featuring music by M. Zachary Johnson.
It will be available at CDBaby.com and amazon.com, as well as Riverwood in Cooperstown and The Eighth Note in Oneonta.
Horner, Avery and Johnson’s performer-composer relationship has led to more than 10 new works for saxophone and performances at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Steinway Hall and New York City’s Mannes College of Music, as well as at the Glimmerglass Opera’s Young American Artist recital series.
Horner, Avery and Johnson hold degrees from the University of Michigan School of Music. Horner now teaches at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn.

11 Students Report Back To FOMA On Summertime Art, Music Studies

COOPERSTOWN

Eleven recipients of CCS’ Friends of Music & Art $200 summer scholarships reported back on their accomplishments Wednesday, Oct. 1, in a gathering at the Smithy Pioneer Gallery, as follows:
• Nicole Ahrens, Marie DiLorenzo and Megan Haggerty showed the ceramics produced.
• Georgia Hren-Saphier played John Lennon’s “Imagine” on acoustic guitar and described her lessons at Brookwood.
• Nancy Fisher spoke about her writing workshop at Alfred University and read an autobiographical poem.
• Quinn Bernegger, Weston Honicker and Liza Rathbun went to Prague with the Hartwick College Choral Festival and sang in a 300 voice choir with others from around the world. That evening, they performed Moses Hogan’s “Hear My Prayer”. • Emilie Rigby presented her oil landscapes completed in classes given by Robert Schneider and Susan Goetz.
• Haley Hohensee told of learning to sew and draft patterns under fashion designer Jillian Bos and showed one of her finished garments.
• Hans Ofer reported on his two-week stay at SUNY Oneonta’s New York Summer Music Festival.
Abigail Brown, Kyle Hohensee, Julia Nelson and Virginia Ofer were unable to attend due to prior commitments.
In all, FOMA gave $4,500 in scholarships and awards.

ON THE FIELD: Wells College in Aurora reports Ryan Huggins of Cooperstown is playing for the men’s soccer team and Juli Vibbard of Burlington Flats is playing for the women’s soccer team.

MIDWIFE: Gail Phillips, certified nurse midwife, has joined Bassett Healthcare’s Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology in Oneonta, Delhi and Cooperstown. A Russell Sage graduate, she has a decade of experience as a midwife in Massachusetts and in the Capital District.

$2,281 DONATION: Fly Creek Cider Mill co-owner Bill Michaels and team member Lin Molloy, a cancer survivor, present a $2,281 check to Friends of Bassett President Scott Barrett. The money was raised from cider sales during the annual “Big Squeeze” event Saturday, Oct. 4. The money goes to Bassett’s Cancer Research Institute; Bassett’s Mobile Mammography Department was on hand to answer questions throughout the day.

Labels: 10-10-08, Locals

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Ruth W. Meade, 96; Life-Long Milford Resident

MILFORD – Ruth W. Meade, a life-long resident of the Milford area, died Thursday afternoon, Oct. 2, 2008, at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown. She was 95.
Born Nov. 26, 1912, at home in Milford, Ruth was a daughter of Albert S. and Laura (Pearse) Winsor.
After attending Milford High School, Ruth was employed for a time as a bookkeeper at S.S. Harrison in Milford. She also spent many years employed in food service at Cooperstown Central School.
A member of the Milford United Methodist Church and the Westville Grange No. 540, Ruth’s greatest joy throughout her life was in providing for other people.
Ruth is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, David and Carolyn Meade of Milford, and three grandchildren, Jaime Simmons and her husband, Randy, of Malta, Lindsey Meade of Albany, and Steven Meade, who is currently attending Binghamton University. She is also survived by several nieces and nephews.
She was predeceased by one sister, Bernice Campbell, and two brothers, Kenneth and Elbert Winsor.
A memorial service was offered at 11 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 6, 2008, in The Chapel at Otsego Manor with the Rev. Stephen D. Fournier, chaplain, officiating.
The service of committal and burial followed in Hartwick Seminary Cemetery.
Expressions of sympathy in the form of memorial gifts may be made in Ruth’s memory to the Resident’s Activities Fund at Otsego Manor, 128 Phoenix Mills Cross Road, Cooperstown, NY 13326, or to the Milford United Methodist Church Memorial Fund, Box 127, Milford, NY 13807.
Funeral arrangements were under the direction of the Connell, Dow & Deysenroth Funeral Home in Cooperstown.

Labels: 10-10-08, Obituaries

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I Looked A Pig In The Eye, Then Ate His Brother

JEANNINE BOHLER

REVIEW

EAST MEREDITH

It isn’t every night that I sip a locally produced wine, entranced by the just-setting sun and the late September beauty of the Catskills before heading to the fields to meet my dinner’s siblings and cousins.
But that is just what happened Saturday night, Sept. 27, at Stone & Thistle Farm in East Meredith. I had a reservation at Fable, the farm’s restaurant that promises a farm-to-dining experience. That is just what I got.
Spots at the beautifully crafted harvest tables are by reservation only. The menu is inspired by what is locally in season and produced on the farm – organic produce, grass-fed meats and dairy products.
That evening’s menu was enticing: Endive filled with blue cheese, grapes, apples and walnuts, mushrooms, grown in the woodlot of a neighboring farm, marinated in Ommegang’s Rare Vos, ale-braised pork roast with rosemary and early apples, a green salad with elderberry-basil vinaigrette, pears poached in another locally produced wine.
I knew what was on the menu before I headed out on the optional, pre-dinner farm tour, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when we stopped to gaze at 30 or so pigs scattered about a nearby field.
I’ve been inspired by the movement to eat locally. I have read the books. I’ve tended to my first garden, delighted in my CSA shares. I can’t get enough of the Farmer’s Market.
I am 100 percent with the program, but I’ve had a problem with the advice that I should look my food in the eye.
Luckily, I didn’t look the pork roast in the eye, but I may have stared into the eyes of next week’s main course.
A pig is not all that cute to me. I don’t want to hug it. But I do feel a pang when I hear its days are numbered. And I did find the week-old nursing piglets something just short of adorable.
But it wasn’t until my tour guide and farmer, Tom Warren, pointed out on the body of a living pig where the night’s cuts of meat were found that I began to waver. Unlike my 5-year-old son, I realize pork and pig are synonymous.
My brain was still trying to find a peace between its carnivorous cravings and its deep-seeded respect for the life when we moved up the field and I found myself eye-to-eye with someone’s Thanksgiving turkey. And then to dinner.
It was delicious and fun, enjoyable to sit around a giant table with friends from Cooperstown and strangers from Otsego and Delaware counties who share a passion for locally produced food.
I feel for the pig. I really do. But there is a comfort in seeing the origins of my food.
There is a comfort in knowing that while the pig’s life was not all that long, and that the purpose of its life was, at least from the human perspective, to end up on someone’s dinner plate, that the life it led was grand.
It lived a life of fresh air, setting and rising suns, surrounded by the beauty of the foothills of the Catskill Mountains.
Local food is the way to go and Stone & Thistle Farm is a great place to experience just how fabulous this food can be. I left fully appreciating that the decision to buy locally supports a whole way of being, for people, for animals, for the earth.
Check the farm out at www.stoneandthistle.com, or go for a beautiful autumn drive. The farm is only 45 minutes from Cooperstown.

Labels: 10-10-08, Glimmerglass Opera, Review, Stone and Thistle Farm

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