‘Otsego County’ Underscores Local Treasures ... And Possibilities

When you drop down through the Schoharie Valley on I-88 and the hills fold one upon another as far as the eye can see ...
When you cross the county line from the east on Route 20 and look ahead to the knobby terrain ...
When you wander down Route 7 through Otego and Unadilla, or up Route 51 through Gilbertsville and Morris to Garrattsville...
When you happen on the Westford General Store, or Hyde Hall, or the long views from the Hartwick campus, or ...
The point is, you realize you’re in a special place – our Otsego County.
If you’re ever doubted it, pick up photographer Richard Duncan’s latest, “Otsego County: Its Towns & Treasures,” the last of three volumes from The Farmers’ Museum, published – regrettably; it makes a great gift – just a handful of days before Christmas.
The new volume accomplishes for Otsego County what the first two – “Otsego Lake: Past & Present” (2005) and “Cooperstown” (2006) – did for Cooperstown and around: It captures the county’s unusual and distinctive landscapes and architecture and puts them in a historical context.
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Thumbing through the 297 photos, it’s impossible to have just one favorite: The rowboats stacked at Gilbert Lake, that huge rooster statue in front of Popek’s Used Furniture near Wells Bridge, the town clock at Richfield Springs – “Syracuse Straight Ahead.”
And Duncan’s eye goes to the defining close-up, be it the old wagon’s contrasting red against the Milford Depot’s soft green, or a wrap-around porch in Edmeston – Nectar Hills Farm Store and the adjoining stone storefront (Rose Is A Rose) in Cherry Valley looks better than ever.
The older photos – the photographer sought images from all of the county’s local historical societies – are particularly arresting.
Women buying wares from a peddler’s horse-drawn wagon in front of an unpainted Greek revival near Schuyler Lake, boys swimming in a Worcester creek, elephants lined up on Oneonta’s Main Street when the circus comes to down, the Decoration Day crowd in Unadilla Forks – these are among the most unforgettable.
What captures many first-time visitors to the county is the sense of yesteryear – nostalgia. But it’s living nostalgia, populated by 21st-century Americans and sharing in all the benefits – good schools, good healthcare, good highways, technological access to pretty much everywhere – of the country at large. Win-win.
While the Glimmerglass and Cooperstown books appeal to the tourist trade and people with affection for James Fenimore Cooper and baseball’s mecca, “Otsego County’s” potential as an economic-development tool is much broader.
The county’s Economic Development Office should buy a few cases and give a copy to anyone serious – or semi-serious, this could tilt the balance – about moving a business concern to anywhere around here. It’s captivating.
Credit is due, not just to Richard Duncan, but to NYSHA Vice President/Chief Curator Paul D’Ambrosio, who polished the text as editor-in-chief, to Cooperstown Village Historian Hugh MacDougall, who wrote a trenchant introduction, and to Jane Forbes Clark herself: She championed and underwrote the undertaking; the result gives Otsego County a competitive edge in any venue where it will be helpful to show this is a special place.
Yes, that could be for businesses purposes, but also environmental protection, tourism promotion – you name it.
“Otsego County” proves Otsego County is something to cherish.
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There’s a caveat, however, that comes through in MacDougall’s introduction.
He quotes Susan Fenimore Cooper: “The advance of this county has always been steady and healthful; things have never been pushed forward with the unnatural and exhausting impetus of speculation, to be followed by reaction.” (The one exception that comes to mind is Oneonta’s selection as a railroad town, which turned out fine.)
The images in “Otsego County,” striking as they are, can’t hide the uneveness of prosperity. To what degree, we might ask, is preservation the flip side of poverty?
“Steady and healthful” progress has brought us to where we are, but progress is not at an end and should not be. The best bulwark against “unnatural and exhausting ... speculation” – 140 natural-gas wells and dozens of 400-foot-tall wind turbines come to mind – is sufficiently wide-spread prosperity to ensure full acceptance of Otsego County’s exceptional assets.
Onward into 2009!

In Defiance Of Tragedy, Penney Gentile Acted

Penney Gentile, after the outpouring of affection for her son, Chris, who died in a car crash in spring 2007, concluded: This is the time that something can be done to slow the scourge of teen-age deaths on the roadways.
Connecting by very real happenstance with Alan Brown of Cartersville, Ga., she learned that states are beginning to adopt “21st Century Driver’s Education” programs, and she was off.
Penney could have suffered her tragedy quietly, sought distraction, tried to forget. But instead she acted, and how.
She brought Alan Brown to CCS a year-ago October to educate the community, she recruited state Sen. Jim Seward to the cause and -- told with two weeks left to go in the state legislative session that it would never happen, stirred up support and peppered Albany with a locust’s plaque of e-mails urging passage.
When a special advisory panel on driver’s ed was formed, she served on it as a parents’ advocate, working side-by-side with the experts in a 13-point plan of reform that landed on Gov. David Paterson’s desk just before Christmas.
The plan, still to be revealed, would be the first updating of driver’s education in a half-century. Who knows how many young lives will be saved.
Senator Seward – he deserves much credit, too – cautions that there are obstacles ahead, and there are.
The point is that Penney Gentile – Carina Frank acted similarly after her parents’ car crash into a farm vehicle – could have done nothing. But she shook off her grief and turned her tragedy into a boon for many people who won’t even realize the agony they were spared.
For that, and for the lesson it teaches to the rest of us, Penney Gentile is The Freeman’s Journal 2008 Citizen of the Year.

Labels: 01-02-09, Editorial, Opinion, Perspectives

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This may be the Era of Economic Uncertainty, but it’s also an Era of Good Feelings.
Since the Nov. 4 presidential election, where he won 52 percent of the vote, Barack Obama’s approval rating has shot up to 72 percent, and another 10 percent are undecided, willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
While those numbers are good, the trend is typical. Once the elections are over, Americans are willing to give a new president, whoever it may be and however they cast their ballots, a chance to succeed.
In these particular times, it’s more than that: There’s yearning that the new president will turn around as least some of the dismaying realities of our current national scene.
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When we reflect on the Christmas message – “peace on earth, good will toward all” – it’s hard not to do so ruefully, considering how short of that goal we’ve fallen.
It wasn’t so long ago when Americans, predisposed to be optimistic as we are, considered progress inevitable.
Yet with the 20th century, and with the horrors that have confronted us in the few years of the 21st century – 9/11, the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan, Darfur, Zimbabwe, Mumbai, mysterious epidemics, “Extreme Weather,” and the aforementioned shakiness – we have to conclude there’s no guarantee things will automatically get better.
While man’s inhumanity to man may seem to predominate, random acts of kindliness, less dramatic but massive in aggregate, surround us as well – love, forgiveness, fortitude, courage, laughter.
Yes, in recent years we citizens of the United States have discovered that things can trend worse. If so, they can trend better as well, and we can hope they are on the edge of trending so.
And while perfection may be beyond mankind, the journey has its own satisfactions.
Even more than the message of peace and good will, the central fact of Christmas is simply birth. With birth, comes hope.
As babies become toddlers, and toddlers become girls and boys, through them we recognize the world anew. Their surprise at the novelties of life remind us of when life was fresh for us as well.
Let us accept 2008 for what it has been – its joys and heartbreaks – and look forward as lightheartedly as we might to expanding the former in the year ahead and minimizing the latter.
Merry Christmas – in all its dimensions.

Labels: 12-26-08, Editorial, Opinion, Perspectives

The beauty of Pamela and Richard Scurry’s idea of ramping up promotion of Cooperstown as a wedding destination it that it builds on existing strengths.
This is no MSG Entertainment seeking to jam 75,000 fans into an East Springfield field each August. This isn’t wildcatters from Oklahoma seeking to drill 140 natural-gas wells from Cherry Valley to Schenevus. This isn’t Spanish multi-nationals seeking to mar our ridge lines with 400-foot-tall metal towers.
It’s a natural. It fits right in with perceptions of appropriate development around Glimmerglass that date back to James Fenimore Cooper’s “Chronicles of Cooperstown,” where he foresaw America’s Most Perfect Village as – plus a pothole or two – we experience it today.
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Yes, people already perceive Cooperstown as a way to make that happy day even more memorable.
And weddings are low impact. They enrich resources that are already in place – from The Otesaga to the B&Bs, from Mayor Waller’s Mohican Flowers to Lucy Townsend’s Templeton Hall, from Alex & Ika’s to Nicoletta’s.
The benefits would be felt beyond the village proper. Howard Johnson’s in Hartwick Seminary has a very inviting venue for weddings that isn’t always front of mind.
And in the face of layoffs, this is something The Farmers’ and Fenimore museums will undoubtedly leap at.
By focusing promotion on the fall and the spring – and brides and grooms, remember, Otsego County’s winter has delights as well – developing the wedding trade would inject revenues into the local economy when most needed.
With weddings running $10,000 to $30,000 to $50,000 and up, it doesn’t take too many to make a significant impact, particularly during the down months. Plus, there’s a countywide public benefit: Bed-tax revenues would leap when they would normally dip.
Of course, people will tell you it’s been tried before.
Yes, the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce does have an outdated link on its Web site, but it was self-selecting: Members and local advertisers bought links, but there was no effort to coordinate – no wedding planners, if you will. The chamber published a glossy four-color wedding book in 2005, but it would certainly benefit from updating.
Talking with Pamela Scurry, it was clear that her knowledge of Cooperstown and around helped her tailor her daughter Kristina’s 2007 wedding precisely to the bride’s tastes and priorities.
The Scurrys have come up with a very promising idea, and by bringing together the key players have begun what could develop into a powerful economic initiative.
Given the bed tax, this is an ideal initiative for the county’s tourism chief, Deb Taylor, to pick up and run with. (Incidentally, if you haven’t visited the tourism Web site, www.thisiscooperstown.com, do so: It’s a real treat.)
Or, even better, perhaps an entrepreneur or two or three would take this on.
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If this promotion can be made to happen, the sky’s the limit.
Cooperstown’s Bill Waller, who was at the Scurrys’ initial meeting, suggested promoting a Christmas destination here might be the next initiative.
With more and more Main Street stores shuttering their windows during January – merchants are turning to the Internet for off-season sales – Cooperstown some days can look a bit like a frosty ghost town. That’s of little benefit to residents, visitors, businesspeople or anyone else.
Let’s hope the Scurry initiative is pursued energetically and its success becomes the basis for further rethinking of the year-’round economy.

Labels: 12-19-08, Editorial, Opinion, Perspectives

It’s likely most, if not all, of the 125 people listening to Hartwick prof Tom Travisano’s reading from “Words In Air” the other evening at The Green Toad in downtown Oneonta must have thought to themselves at some point: This is the place to be.
A warm and welcoming atmosphere. An enthusiastic and curious crowd. A stimulating topic. What’s not to like?
Some folks had hurried over from the UCCCA’s “Aficionados” opening at the Ford Avenue gallery, where Linda Clemow’s tapestries went on display. En route to Travisano’s reading, many passed the scaffolding rising on Market Street: The Foothills Performance Arts Center’s auditorium, due for completion next summer.
Around the corner is the cinema the Friends of Oneonta Theater is seeking to transform back into its original splendor. The Orpheus Theater is thriving. The laid-back Latte Lounge is anything but.
Common Ground, a funky eatery that is thriving in other university towns, is being installed at the corner of Main and Chestnut. The Greater Oneonta Historical Society’s new headquarters is becoming a magnet for many.
While no one was looking, downtown Oneonta’s becoming a happening place.
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As it happens, some people have been looking.
“What I love about the community’s art scene is that it’s very organic, very funky,” said Kathleen Frascatore, Upper Catskill Community Council on the Arts executive director. “There’s a lot of talent, and the arts scene has evolved out of people’s own skill sets. I think downtown should evolve out of that.”
A couple of years ago, Frascatore was at the briefing NYSHA hosted at The Farmers’ Museum on its OpinionWorks survey of tourism in northern Otsego County – it discovered Cooperstown-area tourists are more affluent and older than the norm, like what they find and want to come back.
Southern Otsego would benefit from the same, she concluded, and began nudging Rob Robinson at the Otsego County Chamber and Otsego County tourism’s Deb Taylor in that direction.
So in January, OpinionWorks’ Steve Raabe (he and his wife spent five years B&B-ing in Cooperstown before moving back to Baltimore in 2006) will be launching a similar survey for the Oneonta area.
Raabe expects to have results ready to release by “late winter,” identifying what attracts day-trippers from Binghamton, Albany and Syracuse to Oneonta, and what attracts folks from longer distances to the City of the Hills.
In effect, it will be the raw material of an action plan to take the development of Oneonta’s downtown – and the Southside, and the West End, and northern Delaware County – to the next level. The data should also line up with the Cooperstown survey, suggesting which joint marketing efforts might draw visitors up and down the whole Route 28 corridor.
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At the chamber, Rob Robinson said, “Right now, the basic slogan everywhere is ‘a quaint, historic downtown.’ Every town you drive through has a ‘quaint, historic downtown’.”
Oneonta, he continued, has so much more: A burgeoning arts community, two esteemed colleges, sports – the Soccer Hall of Fame, Cooperstown All-Star Village, the Oneonta Tigers. If these can be melded together … the sky’s the limit.
Frascatore said, “In a creative community, when you’re faced with challenges. That’s when the best work gets done.”
These kinds of sentiments are common in the Cooperstown area. If the new consciousness in the county’s commercial hub continues to rise, potential collaborations that might result can only help everyone.

Labels: 12-12-08, Editorial, Opinion, Perspectives

Maybe paid parking isn’t going to get any easier.
Niagara-on-the-Lake in the Province of Ontario has been held up as a model for Cooperstown to follow.
But Randy Berg, Niagara-on-the-Lake’s supervisor of bylaw enforcement, after ticking off a number of successes, could only muster this lukewarm overall assessment:
“I think we’re following along the path that we should. Purely by the decrease in complaints over the past 10 years, I would say it’s been a success.”
A lengthy interview with Berg the other day evoked that deja-vu-all-over-again feeling:
• Merchants will never be satisfied with anything less than free parking, even though Berg proved any particular parking space will turn over eight times during the business day.
• People who pick up their mail at the downtown post office can never find a parking place, period, and end up double-parking in the street.
• Residents can get a free-parking pass for $10 a year that allows them to park anywhere for an hour. Not everyone’s satisfied, “but that’s the best we can do,” Berg said.
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One unalloyed success: Except for buses headed specifically for the Shaw Festival’s downtown Royal George Theater – there’s one space there to drop people off – all buses must park outside the downtown at a lot leased from Parks Canada.
Buses – 60-70 a day at the season’s height – pay $10 to park, and passengers are shuttled back and forth on three shuttle buses at no charge.
It’s a money loser for the town, but it’s unclogged the downtown and eliminated the hazard of passengers disembarking onto busy streets.
This also made residents happy: Bus drivers had found creative ways of getting downtown by going through residential neighborhoods.
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While the town’s parking program generates about $1.3 million a year, that’s on a base of 13,000 residents and 3-4 million tourists a year.
Adjusted for Cooperstown’s 1,900 residents and 350,000-400,000 tourists, that would bring the take locally down to about $100,000.
When Cooperstown village trustees meet at 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 8, for a work session to analyse what happening with the paid-parking experiment in the Doubleday Field lot last summer, they might ask themselves: Is it worth it?
Certainly, the amount of energy and ill-will engendered this year to generate $55,000 has to be disheartening.
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The root of the problem is profound: Using law enforcement to make money distorts and corrupts the system.
First, the goal of a parking plan in a tourist town should be to enhance the tourists’ experience and minimize the inconvenience for year-’round visitors.
Two, it should ensure smooth traffic flow to the degree possible and minimize traffic-related hazards.
Listening to Randy Berg, it’s a given that merchants will never be completely satisfied.
But the draconian aspects of Cooperstown’s plan – Helmut Michelitsch said his Metro Cleaners in the Doubleday lot lost many hundreds of dollars a day – need to be, not eased, but eliminated.
If all that should be done is done and a surplus results, great. But it should be a happy and unanticipated outcome, not a goal . (Listening to Berg, it’s possible the money’s not there for Cooperstown in sufficient amounts to matter.)
One thing Niagara-on-the-Lake did at the outset was to hire a consultant to help develop goals, measures to meet those goals, and a timetable to phase things in.
Let’s accept the Village of Cooperstown’s program was launched with all good will and the best intentions. It just hasn’t worked out.
The village would do well to scrap the current program and go back to square one.
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A final note: On taking the job 10 years ago, Berg sought to fill the four part-time summer parking-enforcement positions with “para-military types” – his words – would-be police officers and the like.
He’s changed his mind and now hires people from the hospitality trades, and emphasizes to them that they are “ambassadors on behalf of the community.”
Yes, they write tickets – “handicapped spots are a bugaboo of mine,” he says – but the prime goal is to solve problems, answer questions, make people welcome.
In the first summer of paid parking, that didn’t happen here.

Labels: 12-05-08, Editorial, Parking

Cutting cross-lots to Wells Bridge the other day, there was a sign above Milford at Tansey Hill Road: “Be thankful for what you have, and grateful for what you don’t.”
What better scene-setter for a visit with the Naples family, dad Dale and children Owen, 4, Gianna, 2 and Isaac. It was Isaac’s first birthday, and he and his brother and sister had lost their mom, Tanya, to cancer Thursday, Nov. 6, just a few days before Thanksgiving.
They were surrounded by dozens of family members and friends. What better reminder that, when our lives take a seeming turn for the worse, it requires to reconnect with things that really matter: the people who love us and we love. That, in truth, is the ultimate safety net.
Somehow – Dale believes this – things are going to work out.
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Things do tend to work out, although not always as we might expect. That they do is worth pondering this and every Thanksgiving. That, however, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take sensible steps toward the greatest good for the greatest number. And – as SUNY Oneonta science dean Michael P. Merilan noted at the rededication of Science Building I on Oct. 18, quote Pasteur – “Chance favors the prepared mind.”
We’ve been told by some for decades now to “Think globally, act locally” and that makes sense as we try to come to grips locally with an economic tsunami that results from years of wrong economic thinking and has regional, national and international proportions.
While George W. Bush’s post-911 exhortation to Americans to shop was widely criticized, he wasn’t completely wrong. With consumer spending making up 70 percent of the U.S. economy, the collapse of consumer confidence has serious implications.
Nationally, there’s not much we can do about that, but it does make a lot of sense to think through what we might do locally to ease negative impacts on our neighbors. If prosperity is related to money moving from hand to hand to hand – every dollar, after all, changes hands seven times in a year – it’s a disaster if everyone simply decides not to spend; and if you’re going to spend, spend locally.
Instead of driving to Albany for a fine dinner, go to The Otesaga, The Farmhouse at Emmons, any one of Marty Paton’s restaurants – any number of fine local establishments. For that matter, we’ve been meaning to try the White House Inn in Worcester.
If you’ve been renting and qualify for a loan, now’s a good time to buy a house. Use a local bank or credit union; the money is more likely to be reinvested locally. The realtor will spend the commission. Fixing up the new place will help hardware stores and contractors.
Cars: Again, if you’ve got the cash flow, now’s a great time to buy a car. Just look at that low- (or no-) interest financing, the rebates, the lowered prices. When the economy comes back – inevitably, it will, although it’s hard to say just how soon – those prices and costs are going up.
And vacation: Instead of spending a couple of thousand bucks going to Florida in February, stick around, put that money aside and figure out how you can spoil yourself locally this winter – take in a play or a concert, or both, or twice or three times. Dine out. Spend a weekend at The Clarion, and explore what our towns have to offer on a weekend around here – go to an auction, cross-country ski, ice fish.
If Joe spends a dollar at Jack’s, Jack spends that dollar at Sam’s, and Sam spends that dollar at Mary’s, everyone benefits. If Joe keeps that dollar in his pocket, nobody does.
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Our local institutions should be thinking local as well.
For instance, SUNY Oneonta President Nancy Kleniewski has imposed a hiring freeze and asked her administrators to look at cutting $800,000 in the next few months. This is undoubtedly necessary, but it’s not going to help anybody around here. Quite the opposite.
How about this: SUNY Oneonta has one of the most enthusiastic and supportive alumni corps in the state university system. Why not make a special appeal to alumni to create a fund to cover next semester’s $600 tuition increase for students who may have to drop out of school otherwise?
Undoubtedly the New York State Historical Association in Cooperstown had no choice but to lay off eight staffers recently and impose other cutbacks, but that’s not going to help anybody either.
NYSHA has some exceptional exhibits in place until the end of the year – “Of, By and For the People: The Art of Presidential Elections,” is particularly intriguing as this point in our history, as is “Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art.” Why not reach out to political science or art history departments at the dozens – yes, dozens – of colleges and universities within 90 minutes from here and get those students through the turnstile. It’s a win, win, win – for NYSHA, which gets the revenues; for the community, where the visitors spend money, and for the students themselves, who benefit from soaking up the rich offerings of The Fenimore and Farmers’ museums.
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Same with local government.
It was shocking to learn at the NYST&HA reception – that’s the New York State Tourism & Hospitality Association, NISH-tah – at The Otesaga recently that, while the county bed tax was doubled from 4 to 8 percent earlier this year, raising the take from $600,000 to $1.2 million, not a single penny of that additional money has been invested in bringing more tourists here. The allocation to the county Tourism Office remained at $225,000.
Rob Robinson, Otsego County Chamber president & CEO, reported studies have shown that every $1 spent on tourism brings in $28 additional dollars.
In that context, the county Board of Representatives’ using that money to come up with no tax increase at all this year is very shortsighted.
A chunk of that bed tax money – let’s say 50 percent – should be spent – or, more accurately – reinvested in getting more people to visit Otsego County. That, in turn, would increase bed-revenues, which could be reinvested to bring even more people here, and so on.
That is a win-win. Who wouldn’t spend a dollar to get $28? To do otherwise defies common sense.
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We’ve come through an era when unrestrained greed – every pig for him or herself – has been the national credo.
The resulting shift in the national income – ordinary folks have seen their incomes stagnate since 2000, while moguls have bought $3,000 shower curtains – was unsustainable. Too much money – more than even the greediest of us might spend in a lifetime – ended up in the pockets of too few.
Anyone in the help-one-another business will tell you that people who can least afford it are the ones most willing to help out the neediest among us.
Let’s take a page out of these people’s books as we look for a new ethic for a new era.
Let’s think. We can do things that, long term, will help us by, short term, helping our community – our families, our friends and our neighbors.
While fresh challenges require fresh thinking, let’s remember that, in the eons of human history, there are few communities that have enjoyed such plenty as Otsego County, and few communities worldwide today that do.
Let’s savor that and, at the same time, be thankful for what we have as we come to grips with the new challenges – they are temporary and solvable – at hand.

Labels: 11-28-08, Editorial, Opinion, Perspectives

George Aiken famously said about Vietnam, “Let’s declare victory and go home.”
Jeff Idelson took a page out of Aiken’s book, but he’s done the Vermont senator one better.
“Nothing lasts forever,” the National Baseball Hall of Fame president eloquently told a press conference Monday, Nov. 17, in Cooperstown, “but for every ending there’s an opportunity for a new beginning.”
And so the Hall and the MLB Players Alumni Association, turning their backs with regret on the 69-year Hall of Fame Game tradition, have put together a promising replacement.
There’s no guarantee the Hall of Fame Classic, to be played for the first time Sunday, June 21, will become near and dear to fans’ hearts the way the Hall of Fame Game did.
But in putting together the weekend, Idelson and state Sen. Jim Seward’s task force did plug into strains that make Cooperstown near and dear to people who love baseball.
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One, what a nice idea to build the weekend around Father’s Day. And what a master stroke to arrange things so dads and sons, and grandfathers and grandsons, can play catch in venerable Doubleday Field.
It’s such an American thing. Dad come homes and his boy is waiting with the mitts, bat and ball.
Talking is hard for many dads and sons. But the act of catch, the back-and-forth rhythm, is communication, on a crisp afternoon in the late fall, hour after hour as the hill in the distance glows brighter and the sun goes down.
I care, the dad is saying. I love you, the boy is replying.
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The Hall of Fame Game – Hall of Fame Weekend, for that matter – was coming to reflect the unpleasant money-grubbing that characterizes Bud Selig’s MLB, with millionaires extracting $50 and $75 and beyond from kids for an autograph.
Again, the Hall of Fame Classic reaches back to a more innocent time. Throughout the game and for the rest of the afternoon, Hall of Famers and retired Major Leaguers will be signing fan memorabilia – for free. Imagine that.
A popular feature of the Hall of Fame Game – the popular hitting contest beforehand – will be preserved, and an MLBPPA skills clinic for youngsters will be added.
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Idelson’s goal, he said, is to make Cooperstown “the ultimate Father’s Day Weekend destination.”
That’s a great concept. Simple. Powerful. Brilliant.
While today’s Major Leaguers were coming to Cooperstown’s grudgingly – imagine that! – the Hall of Famers and former Major Leaguers aren’t under contract to anyone.
They’ll be coming here because they want to.
Congratulations to Idelson, Seward and HoF Chairman Jane Forbes Clark for closing a rancorous chapter, with regret but emphatically, and turning the page to what very well be a brighter one.
Let’s make it work.

Labels: 11-21-08, Baseball Hall of Fame, Editorial, Opinion, Perspectives

To the Editor:
Thanks to the hard work of parents and staff, The Brookwood School’s 9th Annual ChiliFest was a great success!
Special thanks to every one who donated chili this year, including the following restaurants whose delicious dishes that can be enjoyed year-round:
Cooley’s Tavern, Danny’s Market, Doubleday Cafe, Fly Creek Cider Mill, Hoffman Lane Bistro, The Farmers’ Museum, The Otesaga, Triple Play Cafe, Tunicliff Inn, and Yum Yum Shack.
The Brookwood School sincerely appreciates the support of everyone who contributed their efforts and expertise to make the 9th annual Chili Fest special – THANKS!
CATHY ANDREWS
Interim Head of School
The Brookwood School
Toddsville’sTim Hayes is an intriguing early entry into the village trustee race leading up to next March’s election.
Spend a little time on the SUNY Oneonta Center for Community and Economic Development’s Web site, and you’ll perceive a very productive way of looking at a problem.
First, identify it.
Second, learn about it, statistically and anecdotally.
Third, develop a strategy based on conclusions that grew out of the research.
The center’s study of who shops in Oneonta’s downtown was a great help to The Freeman’s Journal organization in structuring Hometown Oneonta, the 100-percent penetration weekly launched in September in Otsego County’s commercial center.
The original plan was to include extensive drop points in the Route 20 towns, but the study showed that Richfield Springs, Springfield and Cherry Valley shop in the Mohawk Valley, which makes perfect sense. It’s 28 miles from Richfield Springs to Oneonta, vs. only 12 to Herkimer.
The goal of Hometown Oneonta was to connect merchants there with their most likely customers in a cost-effective way.
Cost-effective for merchants, who want to spend their advertising dollars in the optimum way; and cost effective for the newspaper, which by focusing tightly can control costs and provide the maximum punch for potential advertisers.
Nifty.
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Trustee Grace Kull, who is charming AND sassy – nice mix – as well as energetic, isn’t going to run again. “I’d be 90 when my term is over,” she said with her usual frankness, as if that explained all. (At 90, Grace would bring more to the table than many people half her age.)
Milo V. Stewart Jr.’s term is up, and he hasn’t made up his mind whether he’s going to run again and even when he may make up his mind. He’s a lively guy who cares a lot of about his natal village. But if he doesn’t know by now if he wants to stick with the daunting challenge that is being a Cooperstown village trustee, that’s OK. Maybe it’s time to serve the community in a different way.
Which would leave two vacancies, sufficient to change attitude of the brainy but generally disappointing collection of trustees now serving.
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Assuming Tim Hayes runs, who are some of the other folks who might get into the race? If both Democrats and Republicans nominate two, that would leave three slots beyond Hayes, plus anyone who might want to run as an independent.
So who are some prospects? Anne Marie Leinhart, wife of the Ommegang brewmeister, is co-president of the Cooperstown PTO after being in town for little more than a year; someone to watch. Peg Odell, her co-president, is in the middle of every worthy effort locally, and is levelheaded, a consensus builder; likewise, her husband John.
Vinnie Russo, owner of Mickey’s Place, the oldest baseball store (after F.R. Woods), has a million good ideas; he should test them in the public arena. (He’s a former Hertz vice president and Springbrook chairman of the board, so he’s got a lot to offer.) Speaking of downtown merchants, several would be excellent candidates, and – frankly, guys – it’s time to fish or cut bait: Ted Hargrove and Jeff Foster have been the outspoken, but a Rick Gibbon or Kevin Grady (or either of Kevin’s sons, Chris or Matt) would be attractive. Ted, Kevin or Rick would have to move into the village – Jeff plans to – but why not?
A guy who’s a merchant but much more, in terms of his local involvement, tenure and interest – he’s been very active in the Friends of Doubleday Field – is Ed Landers, owner of The Landmark Inn, White House Inn (with wife Margie) and Cooperstown Wine & Spirits. He’d be a natural; he’s on good terms with the mayor, so he’d be ideal for a transitional deputy-mayor role.
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What about the institutions? David Sanford has survived how many changes of administration at The Leatherstocking Corp.? He’s cool-headed – he has to be – and under-appreciated; he’s paid his dues and learned a lot from doing so. If he’s nearing retirement, he ought to think about it. Diane Elliott – her very capable and diplomatic husband Steve is NYSHA president – is a can-do individual; she’s taken on the interim directorship of Hyde Hall – lucky Hyde Hall – but would be a get-it-done trustee. (Once John Irvin retires from The Otesaga, he’d be superb, but this time around may be too soon.) The Hall of Fame, necessarily, perhaps, is too internally focused.
Among current participants in village government, Planning Board stalwart Cindy Falk, a CGP professor, succeeded in convincing the village trustees to create a Historic Commission, no easy undertaking. Matt Schuermann, Planning Board alternate, knows business and finance, and is supremely approachable and levelheaded. Bill Rigby, recently resigned Planning Board chairman, knows the ropes. (Wife Janet is no slouch either.) Maybe Mike DeSimone should quit the police force and run for office; there are great things in store for that guy.
This editorial could go on and on in this vein – Ron Jax, Lucy Townsend (lives out of town), Jim Vrooman, (although he might be better, for now, noodling his way through the Cooperstown Chamber committees), Giles Russell – there’s plenty of pizzazz in that guy yet. Which bring Ted Peters to mind; everyone calls upon him to resolve every sticky issue; why not just take out the middlemen and women?
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The point is – there’s a ton of talent here. And the village board, right now, is failing.
Mayor Carol B. Waller, who was superb during Cooperstown’s Year of Challenge, when Cal Ripken drew 86,000 people here for the National Baseball Hall of Fame induction weekend, has faltered in the face of less-immediate, but no less-important, challenges. Her greatest asset – of many – is her approachability, so she knows this better than anyone.
She has mistakenly placed Trustee Jeff Katz in the role of deputy mayor – after one term, he barely eked out a victory over newcomer Doug Walker – 10 votes; a vote of no confidence, and a Democrat to Waller’s Republican at that. The voters rejected him, but she’s been boosting him; that’s improper.
Still, what choice did she have? Neil Weiller, the top vote-getter, is learning the ropes; he would admit that. Neither relative newcomers Lynne Mebust or Eric Hage, or veteran Milo Stewart, have grown into the position of successor.
If Katz was a mistake, this is the chance for Waller to correct it. She needed to recruit, and support, and elect two candidates of sufficient caliber to become deputy mayor and her successor; she doesn’t intend to run again, (although, who knows?)
What are the challenges? The village is broke, and isn’t going to parking-fine its way to prosperity. Rather, it needs to grow its tax base by bringing in low-impact business, emphasis on low-impact. (Richard Blabey, a future trustee prospect, has suggested becoming a retirement mecca.) It needs to insist the institutions resolve their issues – most immediate, parking; Jane Forbes Clark, herself, should get involved in ending Bassett’s long-standing and expensive legal fight with the village – to the benefit of hospital and village alike. The fight’s gone on too long.
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To encapsulate this: Elect Tim Hayes and/or his equivalent or better. Accept that Stewart, Mebust and Hage are – or should be, unless they grow into the job – short-termers. And prepare for next March’s election as a watershed – to end the current inability to come to grips with the challenge of making the Village of Cooperstown a prosperous, levelheaded, fair-minded, forward-looking, consensus-building entity.
Cooperstown, in effect, is just several half steps, or quarter-steps from indeed becoming America’s Most Perfect ™ Village. But those several half steps simply will not happen if we simply drift. Let’s get focused.

Labels: 11-14-08, Editorial, Opinion, Perspectives

Here’s an idea: Let’s name Nov. 19 “Beat Up On Village Trustees Day.”
Every year, the village trustees can pick some hot-button issue and invite constituents in to yell at them for a couple of hours. This might develop into an evening that everyone looks forward to, maybe with tailgating outside and a pep band.
Bad idea, of course.
But that’s what the trustees are heading toward with the format of the public meeting on parking scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13, at the county courthouse.
Last Nov. 19 was the Day of the Donnybrook, where a 300-celebrant crowd pretty close to out of control in CCS’ Sterling Auditorium hollered at the trustees for two hours about plans to put paid parking into effect.
It failed to satisfy anyone. Quite the opposite; it was counterproductive all around.
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In the old days, the experts in these things used to think that the way to ease anger is to let it out.
More recent research, however, has discovered the opposite turns out to be true. Anger begets anger.
If you’re angry, a better alternative to shouting at someone is to go for a walk along lovely Otsego Lake, or talk the issue through calmly with a loved one, or take a vacation.
So the outpouring of anger didn’t stem the anger; it built it up.
And it’s still going on. It’s the rare village person who can’t build up a head of steam these days by simply talking about paid parking for a few minutes.
The trustees, who sat there mum and took it last Nov. 19, emerged bruised, shaken and, when they started thinking about it, the experience locked them into their positions and made them contemptuous of those who disagree with them.
In recent weeks, Trustee Lynne Mebust, who chairs the Police (i.e. parking) Committee, and Deputy Mayor Jeff Katz have argued no more public input is warranted.
Under a republican form of government, they say, they are empowered to make decisions on the part of the electorate. If a majority of the electorate disagrees, vote them out in the next election – for Katz, two and a half years hence; for Mebust, one and a half.
Meanwhile, tough.
Mebust and Katz are accurate, but they’re not right.
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For her part, Mayor Carol B. Waller has championed public input into the fiasco that was paid parking last summer, and input is good.
But the prospective Nov. 13 format is exactly the same as last year’s, which brings to mind the definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.
A better solution was suggested by Trustee Eric Hage a couple of weeks ago: Bring in a neutral facilitator who can guide the discussion. Sit the trustees with the crowd, not in static opposition. The facilitator fields questions and comment, and bounces them to the appropriate trustee, police chief, village clerk or other individual with some expertise.
In other words, a confrontation becomes more of a conversation.
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Since Nov. 13 is just a few days away, it’s a little late to cast the net too far for the proper person, but Dave Brenner of Oneonta – Ph.D., retired SUNY administrator, former Oneonta mayor and past chairman of the county Board of Representatives – does this kind of thing very effectively.
Please, it’s not too late to make the evening a helpful discussion instead of a standoff.
Let’s not repeat an exercise that, shortterm, made everybody feel bad and, longterm, prevented resolution of a so-far inconclusive and meanwhile very unhelpful local debate.

Labels: 11-07-08, Cooperstown, Editorial, Opinion, Perspectives

Obama Presidency Could Reconnect Nation With Its Ideals, True Promise

EDITORIAL

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John F. Kennedy wasn’t elected president in 1960 because he was an Irish Catholic.
In fact, he wasn’t an “Irish Catholic” except for the happenstance of birth.
He attended elite prep schools and Harvard. He was a son of wealth earned the American way, for better or for worse. He was a World War II hero. A Pulitzer-winning author. A congressman; then a U.S. senator.
He was fully in the mainstream of American life.
Likewise with Barack Obama.
If he’s elected president of the United States Tuesday, Nov. 4, it isn’t because he is or isn’t black.
He attended the elite University of Chicago, and later taught there. He went on to Harvard Law School, where he was the first African-American to head the law review.
He was elected to the Illinois state Senate, where he was quickly recognized as a young man with a future. He electrified the nation in his speech nominating John Kerry in 2004.
He is fully in the mainstream of American life. He is black and post-black, in the way John F. Kennedy was Irish-Catholic and post-Irish-Catholic.
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That is as it should be.
The president of the United States can’t represent just a faction. He or she must achieve an intellectual and moral outlook sufficiently broad to represent all citizens of our polyglot nation.
John F. Kennedy became a transitional president not because he was Irish-Catholic, but because he was so much more.
He captured the nation’s idealism, yearning for expression: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
He identified humanity’s common striving for freedom from repression: “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
And: “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans – born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace...”
Likewise, the huge, ebullient crowds that have gathered to cheer the prospective president Obama sense a similar transition from what, punctuated by the collapse of the stock market, has been eight years of failure, where every opportunity has been squandered and every one of our nation’s assets and ideals diluted.
You can hear the echo in Obama’s words: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
And: “People of Berlin – people of the world – this is our moment. This is our time.”
And: “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America – there’s the United States of America.”
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We have lived through eight years where ideology has trumped common-sense problem solving.
And where only the desire to win and the willingness to say and do anything to win has trumped ideology.
This resulted in mistakes that we feel even here in our generally delightful corner of the country.
Gasoline and fuel prices sapped our family budgets. We worried along with too many of our neighbors with loved ones in harm’s way in Iraq. The housing bust is evident in the for-sale signs that increasingly dot our streets; the lost equity is less evident but just as real.
If we once looked up to leaders who said they’d rather be right than president, we’ve lived through eight years of a leader – certainly the clique around him – who would rather be president than anything.
Regrettably, John McCain has succumbed to the same temptation. He’s shown he’ll do anything to win. His jingoist slogan, “Our Country First,” is bitter irony.
He will look back at his recent choices, of sizzle over substance in the choice of Sarah Palin, of fear-mongering, of – incredibly; The Wall came down in ‘89 – red baiting in his characterization of his opponent’s promised fiscal adjustments and the long-recognized need for wider access to health care.
He has shamed himself. He has tarnished his iconic American life. In the years ahead he will look back and regret it.
Barack Obama is no radical. There’s nothing to fear in his election and much to look forward to with optimism.
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The need to fight World War II finally brought Americans whose families had lived here for decades into the nation’s mainstream, as Dr. Joseph Fiorvanti, historian of Oneonta’s Italian-American community, attested in a recent Columbus Day interview.
The GI Bill then gave them the tools to compete, and that fueled the ’50s, the greatest decade of economic growth in our history.
It took blacks who fought in World War II 20 years to begin getting the same kind of benefit, and the self-defeating riots of the ’60s and ill-considered “Black Power” radicalism turned those hopes to ashes for many.
Regardless, today we have the largest black middle class in the world. But we also have a large black underclass – permanent, it’s called, but it’s only permanent if we let it be.
Our disproportionately poor black population is costly for the nation as a whole to serve, but the lost productivity, the ruined lives and early deaths are a drag not just on our economy, but on our ideals, individual consciences and world repute.
If Barack Obama, as black as he’s white, can be the catalyst that finally brings black Americans fully into the mainstream – that word again – of American opportunity and achievement, that single accomplishment would place him among the greatest American presidents.
Even better, we can hope for much more and we do, here in Otsego County as everywhere else in the United States.
Let’s vote those hopes Tuesday, Nov. 4. Let’s vote for Barack Obama.

Labels: 10-31-08, Barack Obama, Editorial, Opinion, Perspectives, President

Otsego County Voters Should Unite To Reelect Senator Seward

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EDITORIAL

Whatever line of work we may be in, isn’t it most satisfying when, inadvertently or not, by accident or happenstance – or once in a while, on purpose – we accomplish good?
Two instances in 2008 must have been particularly satisfying to Otsego County’s state senator, Jim Seward, Milford resident, Oneonta native.
One, he guided “Chris’ Bill” – named for Chris Gentile of Cooperstown, a CCS senior who died in a crash on Holy Thursday 2007 – into law.
It creates a commission to recommend how New York State can adopt a “21st Century” driver’s education curriculum, last updated in the 1950s. Co-chaired by the commissioners of Education and Motor Vehicles, the commission must report back by year’s end. Let’s get it done!
Meanwhile, the senator extracted $30,000 in state funds to underwrite a pilot program at CCS. It includes simulators like those used to train pilots, UPS’ defensive-driving course and parental involvement. New York Central Mutual of Edmeston provided the final piece a couple of weeks ago: $10,000 to buy an actual car.
Two, he achieved “Carina’s Law” – named for Carina Frank, Town of Otsego, whose father, Mannfred Weidemann, was killed when he ran into the back of a manure spreader on Route 28 north of Portlandville a couple of days before Christmas 2004. (Carina’s mother, Andree, in the passenger seat, took months of hospitalization and physical therapy to recover.)
It requires all farm vehicles on public roadways to be clearly marked with bright reflective tape – research has found that’s even more effective than lights.
Those two laws will save countless lives and avert tragedy, and will continue to do so well into the decades and even generations ahead. Among those who are spared, who knows what vast good they may accomplish.
Cause for satisfaction, indeed.
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As important as the accomplishment was the process.
In each case, when Chris’ mother Penney and Mannfred Weidemann’s daughter approached Jim Seward, they were greeted with sympathy and humanity.
In each case, the senator didn’t grandstand. He brought together all the parties with a stake in the outcome, allowed them to reason together, and solutions emerged from that very sensible and level-headed process.
There was opportunity for conflict; neither was a slam dunk.
In the first case, education officials raised concern about cost, even though the curriculum, pioneered in Georgia, has been proven statistically to save lives.
In the second, the state’s most powerful farm lobby was opposed. But when Carina’s research demonstrated farmers, not drivers, are most often killed or injured in crashes like those that killed her father, they came around.
In each case, Seward was able to draw seniority and experience obtained in two decades in Albany’s corridors of power.
As he regularly does, the Republican senator reached out to his Democratic counterpart in the General Assembly, Bill Magee of Nelson, who co-sponsored and championed the legislation in the lower house.
It was Seward at his finest.
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Some people have made up their minds about most things by the time they reach their early 20s and are hard to sway after that. Not so the best of our fellow citizens – and the best legislators: Seward continues to evolve and surprise well into his third decade as a legislator.
Judging from the Otsego County Board of Representatives, ours is a county that doesn’t embraced activist government, and Seward has respected that propensity. Yes, it can be frustrating when his staff summons up “home rule” as an excuse to go slow on issues that can effect multiple towns and even counties.
Typically, though, the senator will act when he feels he must.
When the Cooperstown Dreams Park dragged its feet for two embarrassing summers on installing a traffic signal at its main entrance on Route 28, Hartwick Seminary, it was a quiet nudge from the senator to DOT’s regional office in Binghamton that finally got action.
With many issues, there is no one right answer. Take natural-gas exploration, for instance, a current one.
While many – this newspaper included – have called for a moratorium to fully assess the potential impacts, hundreds of others, perceiving it as an economic boon, have signed leases to allow the exploration.
Keeping his options open, Seward has identified a first issue to champion: Ensuring that people who sign leases know what they’re signing and, if natural gas is found, profit to the maximum degree. (Check his Web site.)
While free-marketers on the one hand and environmentalists on the other might prefer him to take a harder line, that’s really not Seward’s way.
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So what is Seward’s way?
He’s energetic, attentive, interested and, foremost, flexible. He doesn’t hold grudges or settle scores; there’s simply too much to do.
He’s successful in representing the interests of Otsego County in Albany; of enacting the laws we, specifically, need; of leveraging state money to allow good things to happen locally. (Oneonta’s Foothills Performing Arts Center, now under construction, is one of the latest examples, and a huge one.)
He wants the job. He’s earned the job. When Otsego County came together behind Michael V. Coccoma, he was elected to the state Supreme Court over candidates from much larger counties.
Let’s do the same for Jim Seward. He deserves the county’s full support, from Republicans, Democrats and independents alike, at the polls Tuesday, Nov. 4.

Labels: 10-24-08, Editorial, Opinion

EDITORIAL

Have you looked at maps of our congressional districts lately? Each looks like the letter “J,” and a big one at that.
The 24th Congressional District that includes the western part of Otsego County – Cooperstown west of the Main Street bridge and the entire City of Oneonta – runs 102 miles from Geneva to the Oneonta-Milford line, then north 118 miles to just south of Star Lake.
The 20th Congressional District spans 50 miles from Cherry Valley – the front tip of the “J” – to Masonville in western Delaware County, then shoots east 84 miles to the Poughkeepsie suburbs, then north 179 miles to Lake Placid.
U.S. Supreme Court decisions on one person, one vote, have determined congressional districts should average about 650,000 people, but the practice of gerrymandering – drawing the lines to benefit one political party or incumbent – is still rampant in the Empire State, as evident in the 24th and 20th.
In both, Republicans predominate – 160,000 to 128,000 in the 24th, and 192,000 to 117,000 in the 20th – nods to then-incumbents Republicans Sherwood Boehlert of Whitesboro and John Sweeney of Troy.
In the Democratic sweep of 2006, Mike Arcuri, the Oneida County district attorney, succeeded Boehlert, Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York City lawyer with roots in Hudson, defeated Sweeney, whose scandal-ridden tenure included a DWI arrest and marital discord.
If nothing else, it proves that no district, however jiggled, is 100 percent “safe.” Democracy, however imperfect, eventally overcomes all.
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There are better ways to draw congressional districts – state Senate and Assembly districts around here are no better – than the way it’s done in New York.
The poster child of good-government redistricting is Iowa, where the Legislative Services Bureau, a non-partisan arm of the state legislature, develops three plans based on not just population, but on “contiguity, unity and compactness” – in other words, they have to make sense geographically.
Party registration is specifically ruled out from the criteria.
The governor can veto, but the system has so much credibility, the Hawkeye State has quickly accepted the Legislative Services Bureau’s proposals for three Censuses now, 1980, 1990, 2000 – 30+ years.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer championed a similar plan in New York State, but it is in limbo since his departure.
“We still have a long way to go,” said Gina Keel, the SUNY Oneonta assistant professor of political science. “It’s still a highly politicized process.”
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Which brings us to Election 2008 in Otsego County.
Our two big “J” congressional districts have population equality, but none of the other qualities – “contiguity, unity and compactness” – that would help assure consistent representation by congresspeople who know and care about our issues.
Kirsten Gillibrand is a case in point. She has been seen in these parts rarely in her first two-year term. Most voters in her district are in the Hudson Valley and Capital District. Saratoga County has 200,000 people, compare 12,000 or so in her piece of Otsego County. Where would you put the bulk of your effort?
Say what you will, but the reality is that eastern Otsego County has no representation in Congress.
Gillibrand and her opponent, Sandy Treadwell, Pataki’s secretary of state, have run somewhat predictable campaigns. They offer versions of “affordable health care,” decry “dependence on foreign oil” and support “our troops and veterans.” That they do so in exactly the same words suggests a parroting of market-tested concepts. On the bailout, both call it “flawed.”
The reality is that either will follow their party’s lead on the big issues, but the margin in the House of Representatives will likely be such that their single vote won’t make any difference. So what really matters is how each will serve Otsego County’s interests. Gillibrand has demonstrated Leatherstocking Country is less than an afterthought, which tips the balance to Treadwell.
While he lives in Lake Placid, Sandy Treadwell is a frequent visitor to Otsego County, where he serves as vice chairman of the influential Clark Foundation, chaired by his cousin Jane Forbes Clark of Cooperstown.
Treadwell knows where Cherry Valley is, and Middlefield, and Milford, and Cooperstown Junction, has many friends and acquaintances here and would be accessible to weigh in when local issues reach the level that a congressman should.
Given our gerrymandered districts, Sandy Treadwell is Otsego County’s clear choice.
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At the risk of being accused of inconsistency, voters would be right to tilt the other way in the 24th District, even though a man with a local address, Republican Richard Hanna, who has a home alongside Otsego Lake in the Town of Otsego, is challenging Arcuri, a life-long Utican.
(Actually, Hanna too is focused on Utica, the center of much of his professional life. His business is based in Barnevelt. And he’s a nephew of Utica’s flamboyant former mayor Ed Hanna.)
It’s fashionable to decry politicians, but politics is a profession like any other, requiring a specific set of skills – diplomacy, the ability to compromise, an even temperament and a modicum of respect for what government, at its best, can accomplish.
In observing Mike Arcuri during his first term, it’s clear he’s a pro. He savors what he’s doing and is energized by it. In particular, his focus on the arcane area of infrastructure – roads, bridge and, heavens, water and sewer systems – is much needed. Look around: The 24th District is falling apart, as any town supervisor, village trustee or city councilperson will avow.
Like Gillibrand, it took Arcuri a while to discover Otsego County exists but, unlike Gillibrand, he did and has been increasing attentive during the second year of his first term.
Hanna has a much more interesting personal story – he built a contracting fortune over the decades since his mother and siblings were left penniless by his father’s untimely death; he has been a powerful advocate of women’s issues in the Mohawk Valley – but he’s a dabbler in public life. If he were elected, you suspect he wouldn’t like it much, and the idea of applying business principles to government rings hollow in light of recent events.
Why not a bipartisan team? Arcuri and Treadwell would serve our county best.

Labels: Editorial, Opinion

EDITORIAL

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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

EDITORIAL

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How much public access to Otsego Lake is a good thing?
That’s a question in many people’s minds.
Over the years, it generally hasn’t been a high priority.
James Fenimore Cooper, for instance, railed against trespassing at Three Mile Point during his lifetime; after his death, the land was eventually acquired by the village and is one of its public parks.
Stephen Clark Sr. donated what became Lake Front Park to Otsego County, which so impressed the supervisors they sold it to the village as quickly as they could for $1.
When Ed Smith sought to provide land to expand Lake Front Park to the west, the debate was so heated – think of the loss of tax base! – that he changed his mind and built a lovely home there instead.
When the state proposed expanding the boat launch at Glimmerglass State Park in the 1990s, that likewise caused an outcry that the lake would be overused, and the proposal was withdrawn.
As it is, some 1,200 boats ply the lake each summer, some of which recently introduced zebra mussels, whose sharp shells will eventually limit swimming, or at least make it more hazardous than it is now.
Just in the past few days, the Otsego County Conservation Association has raised concerns that houseboats that have entered the lake in the past half-dozen years are emptying their septic tanks into the somewhat less than pristine waters.
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So that the Cook Foundation, formed in 1985 to preserve the late Bob Cook’s property across Otsego Lake from Kingfisher Tower and make it available to the public, is now interested in selling off the bulk of it, fits the pattern.
You can understand how the trustees, almost all of whom use the lake and several who have homes alongside it, may be ambivalent about the foundation’s mission, to manage Brookwood Garden "for the enjoyment of local residents and visitors."
As it is, the delightful enclave, no more than a mile from the Village of Cooperstown and its half-million visitors a year, is little publicized or promoted. The tiny sign – you have to know what you’re looking for to find it – marks the beginning of the long driveway.
The barn associated with the property declined to the point where it collapsed and had to be removed. The house itself, originally a modest early 19th century structure that grew snail-shell-like, chamber by chamber, into an imposing summer camp – perhaps the lake’s oldest – is likewise in steep decline.
That isn’t to say it isn’t a charming spot. It is, very much so.
The garden house, built in the style of the Arts & Crafts movement, is a delight. Pat Thorpe, a foundation director and a formidable gardener, has created a horticultural wonder.
Most of the property is untended, and this creates a sense of wildness and wistfulness. As letter writers have avowed in recent weeks, it will draw you back again and again.
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The Cook Foundation had about $200,000 in the kitty when a neighbor, Richard Hanna, offered $2 million to buy the parcel north of Leatherstocking Creek that contains the rambling summer house. His plan is to demolish it and build a new home there.
The advantage, and the drawback, is that it would limit public access to the lake. In part, though, public access to the beauty he enjoyed in his lifetime was part of Bob Cook’s intent.
The Cook Foundation board is populated with heavy hitters who certainly could come up with the wherewithal to do more with the property if they wished.
If they don’t, perhaps it’s time for the foundation board to find another entity – perhaps the Otsego Land Trust, perhaps the OCCA, perhaps the SUNY Oneonta College Foundation, (as happened with Mount Tom last year) – to manage the property on its behalf.
Perhaps a collaboration with a horticultural school – the way Niagara College collaborates with maintaining the Canadian side of The Falls – would be just the thing; Brookwood Garden is too big a job for Pat Thorpe alone.
Just because a property should remain accessible to the public doesn’t mean it has to be Disneyland; in this case, quite the opposite.
But Fairy Spring and Three Mile Point are much used and enjoyed, with little impact on the lake at large.
And you can’t help but look at Ed Smith’s place a little ruefully, particularly during crowded events like the Pumpkin Fest Regatta or the Fourth of July fireworks, and wonder what might have been if the village trustees had been a little more broad-gauged in their thinking.
They aren’t making any more lakefront. To lock up such a substantial piece as the Cook Foundation is considering would be a great shame, one that would be much regretted in the years ahead.

Labels: 10-03-08, Editorial, Opinion

EDITORIAL

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In a way, it demonstrates the fleeting nature of controversy.
In 2003, when actors Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were disinvited from the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s 15th anniversary celebration of “Bull Durham” – to many’s surprise had become something of a baseball movie classic – the controversy resounded from the editorial halls of The New York Times to the inner sanctum of the Los Angeles Times, with numerous echoes in between.
Robbins and Sarandon had pronounced anti-war views, unpopular during the ramp-up to the Iraq War after 9/11.
HoF then-president Dale Petroskey, who would become a lightning-rod for the controversy that followed, wrote the thespian couple, “As an institution, we stand behind our President and our troops in this conflict.”
Robbins called that “absurd.”
At least Petroskey and Robbins had the sufficient courage of their convictions to debate the issues out loud.
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By contrast, the epilogue that played out in the Hall of Fame’s Grandstand Theater Friday, Sept. 19, was a little silly in the extremes that were adopted to ensure nobody would draw any larger conclusions from the re-invitation of Robbins and Sarandon to kick off the third HoF Film Festival on, now, the 20th anniversary of “Bull Durham.”
Heavens, we wouldn’t want anyone to think that maybe the Hall of Fame had second thoughts. Maybe, horrors, this might even constitute a little bit of an apology, or even an olive branch, to a couple of Oscar since-winners who had made something of an enduring contribution, however small, to the genre of baseball movies.
First, there was relatively little publicity; the appearance – along with the movie’s director Ron Shelton and supporting actor Robert Wuhl – was characterized as merely another of the continuing “Voices of the Game” series, like that very interesting, but hardly provocative, interview with Randy Newman last year about his score for “The Natural.”
Second, the host, NBC’s placid Jeffrey Lyons, couldn’t have been any more just-the-facts. Clips were shown. Anecdotes were teased out of the interviewees. Nice, but no hint of sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat repartee.
Third, just a couple of questions from the audience were allowed at the end, written one, easily manipulated to avoid anything iffy.
The front-of-everyone’s-mind topic in the Grandstand Theatre that evening was deftly consigned to that outer darkness of expression, where the First Amendment floats in limbo and nobody says anything that anyone else might find embarrassing. No wailing and gnashing of teeth here; any wrenting of garments was purely coincidental.
When it was over, Tim and Susan were whisked back to New York in a limo.
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And so the controversy ends, with five years of bangs in Iraq but a whimper at 25 Main.
The lesson here: When trouble strikes, gear low, ride it out, you probably can.
A traveling version of the Hall’s museum titled “Baseball as America” toured the country for the past six years, our sports correspondent Charlie Vascellaro advises. An accompanying coffee table text opens with 30-page chapter on “Our National Spirit.”
Nice marketing, but say it ain’t so. The stuff of our national spirit is messier than a Hall of Fame can tolerate.
But, of course, the Hall is an institution, and institutions have logics of their own.
What’s so valuable about the National Baseball Hall of Fame is not what it purports to tell us, but the varied, multi-leveled contradictory treasures that it holds, from a bloody sock – a symbol of the ability to endure pain for a larger goal – to a ball with an asterisk on it – a symbol of the willingness to cheat for a larger goal.
We can look to the National Baseball Hall of Fame for fodder – fodder for debate, for understanding, for larger lessons – but not for debate and understanding themselves. We need to chew the fodder and come to our own conclusions.

Labels: 10-03-08, Editorial, Opinion

Bassett, Build Parking Deck, End Argument

If you spend much time in court – avoid it, if you can – you see a dynamic that parallels that of a typical family.
The kids won’t let an argument go, and the parents have to settle it.
It’s unseemly for adults to get drawn into that arena.
Settle it, you find yourself wanting to tell the warring parties.
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So it is in the long-running argument – years-long – between Bassett Healthcare and the village Planning Board over parking.
Both sides have been arrogant and obdurate, and each only seems to get moreso as the argument ensues.
The losers are all of us who have an interest in the quality of life of our village, which has been suffering in the meantime.
Bassett’s inability to bring things to a resolution has resulted in uncounted wasted hours and distraction, as its employees who park on village streets dash away from their duties every couple of hours to move their cars and avoid the $35 fine.
Wasted hours in a hospital setting are particularly expensive – for staff and patients – and distractions can be dangerous, so there’s a pressing public interest in the hospital getting its act together.
On the other hand, Bassett employees parking all over the place is a danger, an inconvenience and an expense; it’s tieing up spaces that might otherwise by used by shoppers and clients.
The village also has a stake in getting this behind us.
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The reality is that Bassett has grown from a local hospital into a nine-county medical behemoth with little consideration for its tiny host community.
The institution is tax-exempt. Most of the jobs are filled by out-of-towners – necessarily, as more people work there (2,400) than live in the village (1,900).
So it’s hard to argue the village should be thankful to have Big Bassett here, (although Otsego County as a whole should be, certainly).
Last year, the plan was for some services – and relat