8 Candidates Vie For 4 Cooperstown Trustee Seats
By JIM KEVLIN & TOM HEITZ: COOPERSTOWN
Democrats and Republicans Tuesday, Jan. 25, nominated full slates of candidates for four vacancies on the Village Board in the March 15 elections, and the first skirmish of the campaign to come emerged.
Some 30 Republicans, meeting at 22 Main, followed the lead of the Village GOP Chair Mike Trosset in opposing the use of lawn signs in this election season.
The four nominated trustee candidates -- Jim Potts and incumbent Matt Schuermann (three years), Phil Lewis (two years) and Joan White (one year) -- agreed it was undesirable to litter the village during campaign season.
“We run on our plans, on our stances,” said Schuermann. “We don’t need signs.”
At the firehouse on Chestnut Street, where 90 Democrats caucused, Village Democratic Chair Richard Abbate said Trosset had suggested the idea to him, but his executive committee is unenthusiastic.
“We feel we have three unknown candidates,” said Abbate, “and this is an inexpensive way to get name recognition in the village.”
Minutes before, the Democrats had nominated incumbent Jeff Katz and political ingenue Ellen Tillapaugh-Kuch (three years), Walter Franck (two years), and Jim Dean (one year).
On the Republican side, Potts is a vice president at New York Central Mutual Fire Insurance Co., Edmeston; Schuermann is proprietor of The Leatherstocking Group, a mortgage broker; Lewis is president of Leatherstocking Insurance Co., and Joan White is a grandmother long active in community life.
On the Democratic side, Katz worked on the Chicago Exchange before moving here, and is a published baseball writer; Tillapaugh-Kuch is a conservator; Franck is a retired physician (Bassett Hospital President/CEO Bill Streck nominated him), and Dean is a self-employed master craftsman and environmentalist.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
CHUCK HAGE: Avoiding Decisions Won’t Help Anyone
Editor’s Note: This is the last of four columns Chuck Hage is writing on his experience as a Cooperstown village trustee. After money, time and accountability, his fourth topic is: Decisionmaking.
Village governance comes down to decisions.
Decisions well beyond the up-or-down votes by trustees. Especially silent decisions made over the years that have foreclosed on opportunities.
Like undermining efforts by skilled people to introduce long-term thinking and formal planning into village policy.
Like denying that, due to lack of professional-level financial accounting and reporting, trustees constantly make decisions that are uninformed.
Like committee chairs asking the board to approve a single choice for a proposal without having justified it against alternatives.
Like ad hoc introduction of trivial topics to the board instead of maintaining priorities and devoting board time to important things. Like encouraging misadventure on the part of staff and dragging debate down to the lowest level in an ongoing campaign of propaganda for personal political purposes.
To put it more politely than that would be dishonest, and the effort required to reverse the trend should not be underestimated. A culture of good decision-making is easy to conceive but takes time to implement in the face of such negative inertia.
It takes people who are comfortable with being a member of a team that is devoted to teamwork.
It takes reworking of policy and procedures by which village government functions.
It takes thinking at a more strategic level than we have yet seen.
It takes constructive attitudes on the part of officials who don’t crave publicity, but hold office to serve the public.
It takes all of that to achieve good decision-making based solidly on evidence, standards, and discipline.
That is a major challenge the mayor is tackling, step by step.
The village faces many issues requiring decisions of different types, so a single case can be only illustrative, but still worth touching on. It’s the Hawkeyes.
Their first season was understandably a financial loss, but the team will play in a new league in 2011, the owner has hired a new manager and new marketing is planned. The owner asked the Doubleday committee to increase financial support for the team through lower rent and other means.
In late 2010, the chair of the committee took the owner’s request to the trustees for discussion but did not recommend whether to approve the request. So the answer to the question – What value did the committee add? – was, none.
It could have picked one of the following: (a) The team will succeed without increased support, (b) The team will fail even with support, (c) Support makes the difference between success and failure. It could have presented a case for or against meeting the request.
Instead, the chair did not bring a recommendation to the board and left the owner of the Hawkeyes waiting yet another month for a board decision. The Hawkeyes might become an asset to the community if judiciously nurtured for a few years, but the board could not be expected to save the day when the responsible chair would not recommend doing so.
The larger issue is whether disappointing outcomes for the community will continue to prevail or be displaced by better process yielding better results. We have all been hurt by past decisions that wasted resources and missed opportunities.
This mayor is trying to put into place a culture of good decision-making. He is applying his administrative skills to attract talent, build teamwork, promote discipline in performing duties, retool and streamline village functions, generate savings, and invest in our future.
He is dedicated to creating an atmosphere of constructive cooperation in village governance that will serve this community well during challenging and prosperous times. If we help him succeed, we can elevate the public sector of the village to a level of performance that earns a share of the name Cooperstown.
Village governance comes down to decisions.
Decisions well beyond the up-or-down votes by trustees. Especially silent decisions made over the years that have foreclosed on opportunities.
Like undermining efforts by skilled people to introduce long-term thinking and formal planning into village policy.
Like denying that, due to lack of professional-level financial accounting and reporting, trustees constantly make decisions that are uninformed.
Like committee chairs asking the board to approve a single choice for a proposal without having justified it against alternatives.
Like ad hoc introduction of trivial topics to the board instead of maintaining priorities and devoting board time to important things. Like encouraging misadventure on the part of staff and dragging debate down to the lowest level in an ongoing campaign of propaganda for personal political purposes.
To put it more politely than that would be dishonest, and the effort required to reverse the trend should not be underestimated. A culture of good decision-making is easy to conceive but takes time to implement in the face of such negative inertia.
It takes people who are comfortable with being a member of a team that is devoted to teamwork.
It takes reworking of policy and procedures by which village government functions.
It takes thinking at a more strategic level than we have yet seen.
It takes constructive attitudes on the part of officials who don’t crave publicity, but hold office to serve the public.
It takes all of that to achieve good decision-making based solidly on evidence, standards, and discipline.
That is a major challenge the mayor is tackling, step by step.
•
“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”
Albert Einstein.
Albert Einstein.
•
Their first season was understandably a financial loss, but the team will play in a new league in 2011, the owner has hired a new manager and new marketing is planned. The owner asked the Doubleday committee to increase financial support for the team through lower rent and other means.
In late 2010, the chair of the committee took the owner’s request to the trustees for discussion but did not recommend whether to approve the request. So the answer to the question – What value did the committee add? – was, none.
It could have picked one of the following: (a) The team will succeed without increased support, (b) The team will fail even with support, (c) Support makes the difference between success and failure. It could have presented a case for or against meeting the request.
Instead, the chair did not bring a recommendation to the board and left the owner of the Hawkeyes waiting yet another month for a board decision. The Hawkeyes might become an asset to the community if judiciously nurtured for a few years, but the board could not be expected to save the day when the responsible chair would not recommend doing so.
•
This mayor is trying to put into place a culture of good decision-making. He is applying his administrative skills to attract talent, build teamwork, promote discipline in performing duties, retool and streamline village functions, generate savings, and invest in our future.
He is dedicated to creating an atmosphere of constructive cooperation in village governance that will serve this community well during challenging and prosperous times. If we help him succeed, we can elevate the public sector of the village to a level of performance that earns a share of the name Cooperstown.
•
“We cannot predict the future, but we can create it.”
Peter Drucker
Peter Drucker
Borgstrom Criticizes Booan About Ainslie Field Status
COOPERSTOWN
Cooperstown Youth Baseball President David Borgstrom Monday night accused Mayor Joe Booan of withholding information about possible hazardous materials at the league’s Beanie Ainslie Field.
Borgstrom said Booan had asked him to keep quiet about the possibility.
Booan said later that he only asked Borgstrom to use discretion, because the extent of contamination, if any, was unknown.
The mayor said he is expecting a report on the matter from the CLA Site consultant, Peter Loyola, in the next few days, and expects it to clarify the issue.
Cooperstown Youth Baseball President David Borgstrom Monday night accused Mayor Joe Booan of withholding information about possible hazardous materials at the league’s Beanie Ainslie Field.
Borgstrom said Booan had asked him to keep quiet about the possibility.
Booan said later that he only asked Borgstrom to use discretion, because the extent of contamination, if any, was unknown.
The mayor said he is expecting a report on the matter from the CLA Site consultant, Peter Loyola, in the next few days, and expects it to clarify the issue.
Law Allowing Main, Pioneer Paid Parking Repealed
COOPERSTOWN
The hurdle has been raised for on-street paid parking in downtown Cooperstown.
At their monthly meeting Monday, Jan. 24, the Village Board repealed a section of a 2007 law that would have allowed paid parking to be expanded to Main and Pioneer streets by a simple vote of the trustees.
Using the 2007 law, the trustees installed pay-and-display machines in the Doubleday Field parking lot, but due to the level of controversy, never expanded it onto village streets.
Mayor Joe Booan has proposed the repeal, and it passed 5-2, with Democratic Trustees Jeff Katz and Lynne Mebust voting nay.
Republican Trustee Jim Potts, appointed that evening to fill the vacancy created by Chuck Hage’s resignation, voted aye despite criticism he had not been on the board long enough to make an informed decision.
“I was not in favor of it then (in 2007),” Potts said, “and I’m not in favor of it now. The public did speak, and then the board did the opposite. And that was very frustrating.”
On-street paid parking could again be approved if a future Village Board decided to do so, but it would require the extra step of a law change and a month’s delay for a public hearing.
During the comment period, citizen Glenn Hubbell pointed out that if on-street paid parking were approved, turnover would halt; visitors would simply park in the same spots all day.
Also that evening:
• The trustees, 4-2, with Potts and fellow Republican Matt Schuermann voting nay, approved an anti-idling law proposed by outgoing Trustee Neil Weiller, chairman of the Sustainability and Public Safety committees. The law allows a fine up to $250 if a driver allows a vehicle to idle more than three minutes when temperatures are above freezing.
(Richard Blabey, Planning Board member, decried the move as another incursion by the “nanny state.”)
• The trustees, also by a split vote, rejected a law that would have extended hours in the Doubleday lot from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the evening. Concerns were raised that the later hour was an added burden on downtown resident; also, that the later time would discourage attendance at Cooperstown Hawkeye games.
• Weiller had also proposed a number of adjustments in downtown parking, some of which were approved and some not.
The hurdle has been raised for on-street paid parking in downtown Cooperstown.
At their monthly meeting Monday, Jan. 24, the Village Board repealed a section of a 2007 law that would have allowed paid parking to be expanded to Main and Pioneer streets by a simple vote of the trustees.
Using the 2007 law, the trustees installed pay-and-display machines in the Doubleday Field parking lot, but due to the level of controversy, never expanded it onto village streets.
Mayor Joe Booan has proposed the repeal, and it passed 5-2, with Democratic Trustees Jeff Katz and Lynne Mebust voting nay.
Republican Trustee Jim Potts, appointed that evening to fill the vacancy created by Chuck Hage’s resignation, voted aye despite criticism he had not been on the board long enough to make an informed decision.
“I was not in favor of it then (in 2007),” Potts said, “and I’m not in favor of it now. The public did speak, and then the board did the opposite. And that was very frustrating.”
On-street paid parking could again be approved if a future Village Board decided to do so, but it would require the extra step of a law change and a month’s delay for a public hearing.
During the comment period, citizen Glenn Hubbell pointed out that if on-street paid parking were approved, turnover would halt; visitors would simply park in the same spots all day.
Also that evening:
• The trustees, 4-2, with Potts and fellow Republican Matt Schuermann voting nay, approved an anti-idling law proposed by outgoing Trustee Neil Weiller, chairman of the Sustainability and Public Safety committees. The law allows a fine up to $250 if a driver allows a vehicle to idle more than three minutes when temperatures are above freezing.
(Richard Blabey, Planning Board member, decried the move as another incursion by the “nanny state.”)
• The trustees, also by a split vote, rejected a law that would have extended hours in the Doubleday lot from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the evening. Concerns were raised that the later hour was an added burden on downtown resident; also, that the later time would discourage attendance at Cooperstown Hawkeye games.
• Weiller had also proposed a number of adjustments in downtown parking, some of which were approved and some not.
COOPERSTOWN AND AROUND: Pacherille Trial Won’t Be ‘til May
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| E. Lawrence Budro/The Freeman’s Journal The Fly Creek Methodist Church choir brought a New Orleans beat to the second annual Choir Challenge Saturday, Jan. 22, at The Otesaga. It raised $1,400 for local food banks. Oneonta’s Main Street Baptist Church choir won. |
COOPERSTOWN
The trial of Tony Pacherille, 16, in the Good Friday shooting has been delayed until the last week in May.
It had been scheduled to begin Monday, Jan. 31.
District Attorney John Muehl said the defense needed more time to prepare its experts.
LIFE IS A ... Caberet, and CCS’ annual Cabaret Night is 5-9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 28, in the middle/high school auditorium.
ELEVEN RULES: This year we will experience four unusual dates – 1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11 and 11/11/11. Now, figure this out: Take the last two digits of the year you were born plus the age you will be this year and see what you get. Spooky!
Input Asked On Fate Of Brookwood
COOPERSTOWN
How would you like to see one of the grand old estates on Otsego Lake developed for public use?
Here’s your chance.
The Brookwood Citizens Committee’s first informational meeting on the future of Brookwood Garden is at 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 30, in Templeton Hall, and the public is welcome.
It will include an overview of the 22-acre site and its natural, scenic, and historic features. There will be an opportunity for public input, and to work with the committee to explore reuse of the site.
The site is owned by the Cook Foundation, which plans to transfer it to Otsego Land Trust within the next few months.
With Brookwood Point and related conservation easements, the merger of the two organizations will consolidate 1,179 acres of conservation lands around Otsego Lake.
The meeting will be two hours and will conclude with a reception. If you would like to share ideas about the future of the site, but can’t attend, please contact Peter Hujik, Land Trust executive director, at 547-2366.
Otsego Land Trust is also interested in all old photographs and documents related to Brookwood Point.
How would you like to see one of the grand old estates on Otsego Lake developed for public use?
Here’s your chance.
The Brookwood Citizens Committee’s first informational meeting on the future of Brookwood Garden is at 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 30, in Templeton Hall, and the public is welcome.
It will include an overview of the 22-acre site and its natural, scenic, and historic features. There will be an opportunity for public input, and to work with the committee to explore reuse of the site.
The site is owned by the Cook Foundation, which plans to transfer it to Otsego Land Trust within the next few months.
With Brookwood Point and related conservation easements, the merger of the two organizations will consolidate 1,179 acres of conservation lands around Otsego Lake.
The meeting will be two hours and will conclude with a reception. If you would like to share ideas about the future of the site, but can’t attend, please contact Peter Hujik, Land Trust executive director, at 547-2366.
Otsego Land Trust is also interested in all old photographs and documents related to Brookwood Point.
26 More From CCS College-Bound
COOPERSTOWN
Cooperstown Central School announced 26 more students were recently admitted to college:
Autumn Arthurs, Hartwick College; Chris Barletta, SUNY Delhi; David Bonderoff, Colorado School of Mines; Samantha Borgstrom, American University of Rome; Greg Brodersen, Siena College; Sierra Butler, SUNY Canton; Ann Cannon, American University; Shanette Couse, Herkimer and Tompkins-Cortland community colleges; Nathaniel Delgado, SUNY Delhi; Nancy Fisher, Siena College; Alexandra French, SUNY Geneseo; Michael Leonardo, RPI; Raquel Perez, Siena College, University of Tampa; Brian Heneghan, University at Buffalo, SUNY Maritime College, SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Potsdam; Isaac Huntsman, Syracuse University; Joseph Kevlin: LaSalle University, SUNY Oswego.
Also, Adrian Lynch, SUNY Canton; Rebecca Miller, Herkimer Community College; Andrew Pink-Burton, Herkimer Community College; Tyler Preston, SUNY Morrisville, SUNY Delhi; Dylan Rathbun, University of Northwestern Ohio, Broome Community College, Cayuga Community College, Onondaga Community College; Larissa Ryan, SUNY Albany, SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Potsdam; Christopher Satriano, SUNY Delhi, SUNY Cobleskill; Jessica Shelton, Hamilton College; Rodney Shute, SUNY Morrisville; Christopher Wehner, Niagara University
Nancy Fisher was offered a Presidential Scholarship to Siena, and Joseph Kevlin a Founder’s Scholarship at LaSalle.
Cooperstown Central School announced 26 more students were recently admitted to college:
Autumn Arthurs, Hartwick College; Chris Barletta, SUNY Delhi; David Bonderoff, Colorado School of Mines; Samantha Borgstrom, American University of Rome; Greg Brodersen, Siena College; Sierra Butler, SUNY Canton; Ann Cannon, American University; Shanette Couse, Herkimer and Tompkins-Cortland community colleges; Nathaniel Delgado, SUNY Delhi; Nancy Fisher, Siena College; Alexandra French, SUNY Geneseo; Michael Leonardo, RPI; Raquel Perez, Siena College, University of Tampa; Brian Heneghan, University at Buffalo, SUNY Maritime College, SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Potsdam; Isaac Huntsman, Syracuse University; Joseph Kevlin: LaSalle University, SUNY Oswego.
Also, Adrian Lynch, SUNY Canton; Rebecca Miller, Herkimer Community College; Andrew Pink-Burton, Herkimer Community College; Tyler Preston, SUNY Morrisville, SUNY Delhi; Dylan Rathbun, University of Northwestern Ohio, Broome Community College, Cayuga Community College, Onondaga Community College; Larissa Ryan, SUNY Albany, SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Potsdam; Christopher Satriano, SUNY Delhi, SUNY Cobleskill; Jessica Shelton, Hamilton College; Rodney Shute, SUNY Morrisville; Christopher Wehner, Niagara University
Nancy Fisher was offered a Presidential Scholarship to Siena, and Joseph Kevlin a Founder’s Scholarship at LaSalle.
Zdanowiczes Win Lighting Contest
SPRINGFIELD
Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Zdanowicz, Koenig Road, won the Town of Springfield’s annual Christmas lighting contest, sponsored by the Springfield Historical Society. Second, the Charles Taylors, Bartlett Road; third, the Kenneth Martzes, Rt. 80.
Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Zdanowicz, Koenig Road, won the Town of Springfield’s annual Christmas lighting contest, sponsored by the Springfield Historical Society. Second, the Charles Taylors, Bartlett Road; third, the Kenneth Martzes, Rt. 80.
Laila Monet Joins Hartwick Huestises
HARTWICK
A daughter, Laila Monet Huestis, was born at 5:47 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2011, at Bassett Hospital to Michael and Sara Huestis of Hartwick.
She weighed 8 pounds, 12 ounces, and was 20 1/2 inches long.
She joins brother Aidan William Huestis, who will turn 2 on March 19.
A daughter, Laila Monet Huestis, was born at 5:47 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2011, at Bassett Hospital to Michael and Sara Huestis of Hartwick.
She weighed 8 pounds, 12 ounces, and was 20 1/2 inches long.
She joins brother Aidan William Huestis, who will turn 2 on March 19.
RN Nan Root Gets Machine For Jamaicans
Bassett Hospital RN Nan Root is in Morant Bay, Jamaica, this month, delivering an anesthesia machine to Prince Margaret Hospital there.
Root had spent January 2010 at Prince Margaret through Bassett and Hartwick College’s Partnership for Nursing Opportunities program and noticed the anesthesia machine in use was out of date.
On returning to Otsego County, she discovered the anesthesia machine that belonged to Bassett’s O’Connor Hospital in Delhi was being replaced with an upgraded model.
The hospital agreed to donate the machine, and the challenge became how to get the 550-pound piece of equipment – crated, it weighed over 700 pounds – from Cooperstown to Morant Bay.
Root had spent January 2010 at Prince Margaret through Bassett and Hartwick College’s Partnership for Nursing Opportunities program and noticed the anesthesia machine in use was out of date.
On returning to Otsego County, she discovered the anesthesia machine that belonged to Bassett’s O’Connor Hospital in Delhi was being replaced with an upgraded model.
The hospital agreed to donate the machine, and the challenge became how to get the 550-pound piece of equipment – crated, it weighed over 700 pounds – from Cooperstown to Morant Bay.
4 CCS Teachers Invited To National Conferences
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| Four CCS teachers – from left, Theresa Gigliotti, Diana Garcia, Jennifer Rightmyer and Michelle Hitchcock – will be representing Cooperstown at national forums this semester. |
COOPERSTOWN
Four CCS teachers will participate in national conferences this semester, Superintendent of Schools C.J. Hebert has announced.
• Michelle Hitchcock will present “Management, Marketing and Collaboration” at the School Library Media Section, New York Library Association, at the statewide conference May 5-7 in Buffalo.
• Diana Garcia and Jennifer Rightmyer will present “Engaging Parents in Support of Student Success” in March at the Expeditionary Learning National Conference in Portland, Ore., to representatives of 165 schools nationwide.
• Therese Gigliotti will represent New York State at the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers Conference (PARCC) in Orlando, Fla.
What An Example: Emergency Squad Has Served Cooperstown For 40 Years
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| Jim Kevlin/The Freeman’s Journal The 40th anniversary banquet of the Emergency Squad of the Cooperstown Fire Department included, seated, from left, life members Joe Carentz (the squad’s last surviving charter member), Brian Clancy, Carol Affourtit and Mike Welch; standing, from left, are Mayor Joe Booan, the current squad captain, Eric Pierce, past captains Bev Hargrove, Bob Satriano, Bonnie Kaido, Bruce Maxson and Fred Lemister, Fire Chief Paul Bedworth and Police Chief Diana Nicols. Carentz and Affourtit have also served as captains. |
It’s a story that merits retelling – often – and Fred Lemister, one of the longest-serving members of the Emergency Squad of the Cooperstown Fire Department, did so at the squad’s 40th anniversary celebration Saturday evening, Jan. 22, at St. Mary’s “Our Lady of the Lake” church hall.
Within five days of each other in 1992, two men died: Andy Gracey of Toddsville and Cooperstown Mayor Jim Woolson.
And yet, Gracey lived another 11 years. Woolson, fiery as ever, stopped by The Freeman’s Journal office the other day to weigh in on one of the issues of the day.
Both men died. But they lived, thanks to skills volunteer squad members had developed in the years since July 20, 1970, when – with a Cadillac ambulance provided by Jane Forbes Clark – the first 10 members, under the direction of Gordon Fowler, reported for duty.
On May 21, 1992, the squad arrived at Gracey’s Toddsville home. The man, 71, was indeed dead. But two jolts of the defibrillator and his heart began to beat again. He was brought back to life.
On May 26, 1992, Mayor Woolson collapsed leaving village hall. Again, he was dead when the squad arrived. But a single jolt of the defibrillator revived him.
At Gracey’s funeral in 2003 – he lived to age 82 – family members came up to Lemister and said, “Thank you for giving us our father for another 11 years.”
Said Fred, “That’s why we do what we do.”
•
“It’s our village and it’s our responsibility,” Taugher remembered thinking when, well over 80, he retired from the Village Board a couple of years before he died.
When it was discussed, nine members – Joe Carentz, the last survivor of those brave few, was one of them – raised their hands in favor of adopting the service. The next meeting, they discovered they’d been drafted as the fledgling squad’s first members.
Fred Lemister, a firefighter, was a skeptic. A volunteer ambulance squad was an untried idea. He didn’t believe it could be done. Soon, however, he was sold.
“I’ve never been so happy to be so wrong,” he said the other night.
It’s hard to believe that the service has been provided, free of charge, for all these years, although it seems a move is in the offing to replace the mutual assistance agreements between Cooperstown and its neighbors with Cooperstown Medical Transport’s paid service.
What we don’t appreciate, we lose.
•
While the last couple of years have been rough one for community amity in Cooperstown, all of the recent warring parties were represented at that dinner, sitting across from each other, breaking bread, sipping glasses of punch.
As we enter another political season – both parties nominated full slates Tuesday night, Jan. 25, for the March 15 village elections – let’s remember the example of the Emergency Squad of the Cooperstown Fire Department.
Sure, there have been tiffs, but the idea of service to community has allowed the squad to survive, even thrive, for decades. Service is was it’s all about.
Ladies and gentlemen of the squad, well done.
JAMES HERMAN: Might County Become Dish, Texas, Of North?
I had the pleasure of spending time with Mayor Calvin Tillman of Dish, Texas, when I drove him to speak with local officials Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010, during the day and in the evening to a public event at Oneonta’s Unitarian Universalist Church.
Dish receives emissions from 11 natural-gas compressor stations and many pipelines. The results are seen in serious health issues for quite a few residents of this little town. High levels of carcinogenic and neurotoxin compounds have been recorded which are above safe levels.
My most poignant personal experience with Mayor Tillman occurred driving up Route 205 to Cooperstown.
Calvin looking out at a cornfield says: “In Texas you could not drive straight through at 55-60 mph on a road like this.”
I ask why not?
“Because there would be so much heavy-duty tanker-truck traffic from the gas wells. These corn fields would make perfect well sites.”
The Marcellus Shale (one of several target strata for the gas companies) in New York State alone is over 3.5 times the size of its relative, the Texas Barnett shale.
It suddenly hit me how much my life will change if natural gas drilling proceeds. Like many people in Otsego County, I travel Routes 205 and 28 many times in a month. A lot of gas leases border both 205 and 28.
Just imagine Route 28 with the 350,000+/- tourists a summer traveling to Cooperstown and waiting on the massive tankers carrying water, toxic chemicals and heavy-duty equipment.
There can be little doubt that traffic congestion, road deterioration, accidents and pollution will result. What will this mean to tourism in Cooperstown?
What happens when a tanker carrying toxic waste water from the wells has a spill on the road? Is Otsego County or New York State ready to pay for the clean up? Spills are the most common accident in natural gas production. Colorado recorded 1,549 spills between 2003 to 2008, about one a day. (Source: Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission)
Mayor Tillman later stated that, to handle the heavy equipment and tanker traffic, roads must have a gravel base with 8 inches of asphalt on top. Presently state highways like 205 and 28 have about 2 inches of asphalt. (Delta Engineering will be performing a road assessment in several towns in 2011-12)
That would be a very expensive highway, especially if tourists just get disgusted with the industrial level traffic and decide to go elsewhere.
Jim Herman, who lives in Hartwick, is OCCA Conservationist of the Year.
Dish receives emissions from 11 natural-gas compressor stations and many pipelines. The results are seen in serious health issues for quite a few residents of this little town. High levels of carcinogenic and neurotoxin compounds have been recorded which are above safe levels.
My most poignant personal experience with Mayor Tillman occurred driving up Route 205 to Cooperstown.
Calvin looking out at a cornfield says: “In Texas you could not drive straight through at 55-60 mph on a road like this.”
I ask why not?
“Because there would be so much heavy-duty tanker-truck traffic from the gas wells. These corn fields would make perfect well sites.”
The Marcellus Shale (one of several target strata for the gas companies) in New York State alone is over 3.5 times the size of its relative, the Texas Barnett shale.
It suddenly hit me how much my life will change if natural gas drilling proceeds. Like many people in Otsego County, I travel Routes 205 and 28 many times in a month. A lot of gas leases border both 205 and 28.
Just imagine Route 28 with the 350,000+/- tourists a summer traveling to Cooperstown and waiting on the massive tankers carrying water, toxic chemicals and heavy-duty equipment.
There can be little doubt that traffic congestion, road deterioration, accidents and pollution will result. What will this mean to tourism in Cooperstown?
What happens when a tanker carrying toxic waste water from the wells has a spill on the road? Is Otsego County or New York State ready to pay for the clean up? Spills are the most common accident in natural gas production. Colorado recorded 1,549 spills between 2003 to 2008, about one a day. (Source: Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission)
Mayor Tillman later stated that, to handle the heavy equipment and tanker traffic, roads must have a gravel base with 8 inches of asphalt on top. Presently state highways like 205 and 28 have about 2 inches of asphalt. (Delta Engineering will be performing a road assessment in several towns in 2011-12)
That would be a very expensive highway, especially if tourists just get disgusted with the industrial level traffic and decide to go elsewhere.
Jim Herman, who lives in Hartwick, is OCCA Conservationist of the Year.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Beautiful, Devious Central New York
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| E. Lawrence Budro/The Freeman’s Journal Our photographer, Larry Budro of Richfield Springs, caught this hellish vision of sunrise over Canadarago Lake on one of the first days of 2011. Happy New Year? Maybe. |
COOPERSTOWN AND AROUND
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| The Freeman’s Journal Shane Tang goes for the ceiling as the CCS Red Hot Ropers performed for the 19th year Friday, Jan. 14, at the elementary school. (More photos, A2) |
Potts Proposed
As New Trustee
Mayor Joe Booan plans to appoint James E. Potts, Jr., Monday, Jan. 24, to the Village Board seat vacated by Chuck Hage in December. He is an executive at New York Central Mutual. (Details, A2)
TRANSPLANT ON: Patrick Baker, 38, of Cooperstown, the focus of a fund drive in 2010, was undergoing a liver transplant Tuesday, Jan. 18. Further details will be forthcoming.
HI, FRANCESCA: Glimmerglass Festival’s new general & artistic director, Francesa Zambello, will be introduced to the public at “What’s Up At The Opera?” at 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 23, at the village library, 22 Main. The public is welcome.
CALL FOR QUILTS: The Fenimore Quilt Club is accepting entries for its 2011 show 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 22, at the Cooperstown Art Association, 22 Main. The show will be Feb. 5-20.
Ioxus To Move Manufacturing Into Soccer Hall Of Fame Site
Futuristic Ultracapacitor Maker Plans To Hire 30 Engineers,
Professionals, With 200 Production Workers To Follow Soon
By JIM KEVLIN
ONEONTA
Yes, there is order in the universe.
When Ioxus President/CEO Mark McGough (pronounced ma-gew) graduated from high school outside Pittsburgh, he had to make a choice: semi-pro soccer or Notre Dame.
“I always wanted to be in the Hall of Fame,” he said, although he chose South Bend, then went on for an advanced engineering degree at New Jersey Institute of Technology.
But lo and behold, there he was the other day, key in hand, doing a walkthrough of the National Soccer Hall of Fame’s former headquarters, which soon will house the innovative ultracapacitor-manufacturing company.
If the soccer link makes the building a natural for McGough, the futuristic architecture is a perfect fit for a company in the process of reinventing the nation and world’s energy future.
Ioxus is making ultracapacitors – devices that can deliver a charge without degrading the power source. Think electric cars. Think national grid.
The Generation One and Two products being produced at the company’s current Winney Hill Road plant is outfitting long-lasting flashlights and other small appliances. Gen Three and Four, top secret for now, were so exciting to McGough he walked away from two attractive CEO offers to come here.
A couple of days before McGough, an intense 40-something executive with sandy hair and an open smile, sat down for this interview, a contingent from General Electric’s Schenectady plant had visited, examining the local product for electric buses.
Ioxus was founded in 2008, a spinoff from Custom Electronics, Inc., and has been expanding steadily in the former Agway across Winney Hill Road from Family Dollar.
To move to the next step, the company is hosting a Job Fair, 4-8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 25, in the Hall of Fame lobby, looking for a controller, a facility manager and various types of engineers. One the Hall is renovated for manufacturing, Ioxus will be hiring 150-200 production workers.
Talking to McGough, he soon emerges as an ideal candidate for the job he assumed in September.
Since 1995, after a dozen years with a public utility and a clean-energy consulting firm, he was asked by a client, PacifiCorp., Portland, Ore., to assess Maxwell Industries as a prospect for investment.
When he reported back positively, PacifiCorp made the investment and installed McGough as president of Maxwell Advanced Engineering Products, one of the company’s five subsidiaries. It manufactured ultracapacitors, and sales soon reached $11 million.
After three years, he shifted to president/CEO of Envinta Corp., energy-efficiency consultants, and after selling that to Tersus Energy in 2006, he joined Pentadyne, an energy-efficient flywheel manufacturer.
As that company was being sold off in mid-2010, McGough received two CEO offers from energy-related companies. About to accept one of them, he received a call from Braemar Energy, the venture capital firm that helped launch Ioxus: He was soon sold.
Braemar, along with state and federal grants, came up with the original “series one” financing, $5 million, McGough said. Negotiations are nearing completion now on “series two” financing, $20 million, with Braemar participating again.
IBM started in Oneonta, but soon moved down the line to Binghamton. What would keep Ioxus here? The availability of talent, foremost: McGough said he would be delighted to sit down with SUNY Oneonta President Nancy Kleniewski to discuss what each organization can do for the other.
I-88 is an asset, for sure. But an airport would be even moreso. Oneonta Municipal Airport? Or better, Oneonta International.
Professionals, With 200 Production Workers To Follow Soon
By JIM KEVLIN
ONEONTA
Yes, there is order in the universe.
When Ioxus President/CEO Mark McGough (pronounced ma-gew) graduated from high school outside Pittsburgh, he had to make a choice: semi-pro soccer or Notre Dame.
“I always wanted to be in the Hall of Fame,” he said, although he chose South Bend, then went on for an advanced engineering degree at New Jersey Institute of Technology.
But lo and behold, there he was the other day, key in hand, doing a walkthrough of the National Soccer Hall of Fame’s former headquarters, which soon will house the innovative ultracapacitor-manufacturing company.
If the soccer link makes the building a natural for McGough, the futuristic architecture is a perfect fit for a company in the process of reinventing the nation and world’s energy future.
Ioxus is making ultracapacitors – devices that can deliver a charge without degrading the power source. Think electric cars. Think national grid.
The Generation One and Two products being produced at the company’s current Winney Hill Road plant is outfitting long-lasting flashlights and other small appliances. Gen Three and Four, top secret for now, were so exciting to McGough he walked away from two attractive CEO offers to come here.
A couple of days before McGough, an intense 40-something executive with sandy hair and an open smile, sat down for this interview, a contingent from General Electric’s Schenectady plant had visited, examining the local product for electric buses.
Ioxus was founded in 2008, a spinoff from Custom Electronics, Inc., and has been expanding steadily in the former Agway across Winney Hill Road from Family Dollar.
To move to the next step, the company is hosting a Job Fair, 4-8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 25, in the Hall of Fame lobby, looking for a controller, a facility manager and various types of engineers. One the Hall is renovated for manufacturing, Ioxus will be hiring 150-200 production workers.
Talking to McGough, he soon emerges as an ideal candidate for the job he assumed in September.
Since 1995, after a dozen years with a public utility and a clean-energy consulting firm, he was asked by a client, PacifiCorp., Portland, Ore., to assess Maxwell Industries as a prospect for investment.
When he reported back positively, PacifiCorp made the investment and installed McGough as president of Maxwell Advanced Engineering Products, one of the company’s five subsidiaries. It manufactured ultracapacitors, and sales soon reached $11 million.
After three years, he shifted to president/CEO of Envinta Corp., energy-efficiency consultants, and after selling that to Tersus Energy in 2006, he joined Pentadyne, an energy-efficient flywheel manufacturer.
As that company was being sold off in mid-2010, McGough received two CEO offers from energy-related companies. About to accept one of them, he received a call from Braemar Energy, the venture capital firm that helped launch Ioxus: He was soon sold.
Braemar, along with state and federal grants, came up with the original “series one” financing, $5 million, McGough said. Negotiations are nearing completion now on “series two” financing, $20 million, with Braemar participating again.
IBM started in Oneonta, but soon moved down the line to Binghamton. What would keep Ioxus here? The availability of talent, foremost: McGough said he would be delighted to sit down with SUNY Oneonta President Nancy Kleniewski to discuss what each organization can do for the other.
I-88 is an asset, for sure. But an airport would be even moreso. Oneonta Municipal Airport? Or better, Oneonta International.
CHUCK HAGE: Challenge Status Quo
Editor’s Note: This is the third of four columns Chuck Hage is writing on his experience as a Cooperstown village trustee. After money and time, his third topic is: Accountability.
The functions of village government can be grouped into administrative (finance and accounting, public safety, justice), operational (water and sewer, maintenance of streets and buildings, parks, library) and developmental (projects to create new facilities, programs of community development).
The first important observation about Cooperstown government is that all village job descriptions currently are administrative or operational; none are developmental. Likewise, nothing is currently budgeted or spent for development except for projects funded with federal and state monies.
There is no organizational structure for development and nearly all property taxes are presently consumed by administrative and operational work.
That means the public sector at best is standing still.
In a community blessed with wonderful environment and enviable legacy, in which private institutions have created and sustain high standards of economic and social health, the public sector misses opportunities for enhancement.
Streets and trees should be in better condition, garbage collection and sidewalk plowing could be provided, and restoration of the village hall is overdue. We should think not only in terms of better services, but also better use of our assets.
Doubleday Field and the adjoining expanse of asphalt from Chestnut Street on the west to Willow Creek on the east are tarnished treasures longing to be polished. Main Street waits year after year to fulfill its potential while the public and private voices debate. Lower Chestnut Street, an ugly entrée to a beautiful village, begs for a facelift. And Grove Street offers some of the last raw material left within the village.
Cooperstown government is relatively large; it has grown considerably in the last decade and is oversized by any measure, especially when considering a concurrent decline in the number of village residents.
Total employment compensation has become a large percentage of the annual budget as public salaries and benefits have increased, here as elsewhere. Clearly this trend needs to be reversed, and one way to do it starts with acknowledging that some functions of village government can be performed under contract.
From time to time the village should obtain bids to perform various administrative and operational functions. Bids provide benchmarks for cost and quality of performance and are a basis to decide whether to streamline an existing function or award a contract to perform it.
Unless village government faces these kinds of “make/buy” (employ/contract) decisions, it cannot claim to have found the best deal for taxpayers.
For as long as it continues to do everything internally without competitive exposure, it will tend to run a job protection program and not fully serve taxpayers.
We realize this when we identify villages, similar in size and complexity to Cooperstown, that function very well with very small staff and a simple organizational structure.
There is no penalty for copying excellent governance; it’s a doorway toward quality services plus savings that can be applied to capital development without raising property taxes.
“… the leaders who will deserve praise in this new era are those who develop a hybrid politics that persuades a majority of voters to cut where we must so we can invest where we must.” Thomas Friedman, Cut Here, Invest There, NYT 12/25/10
The functions of village government can be grouped into administrative (finance and accounting, public safety, justice), operational (water and sewer, maintenance of streets and buildings, parks, library) and developmental (projects to create new facilities, programs of community development).
The first important observation about Cooperstown government is that all village job descriptions currently are administrative or operational; none are developmental. Likewise, nothing is currently budgeted or spent for development except for projects funded with federal and state monies.
There is no organizational structure for development and nearly all property taxes are presently consumed by administrative and operational work.
That means the public sector at best is standing still.
In a community blessed with wonderful environment and enviable legacy, in which private institutions have created and sustain high standards of economic and social health, the public sector misses opportunities for enhancement.
Streets and trees should be in better condition, garbage collection and sidewalk plowing could be provided, and restoration of the village hall is overdue. We should think not only in terms of better services, but also better use of our assets.
Doubleday Field and the adjoining expanse of asphalt from Chestnut Street on the west to Willow Creek on the east are tarnished treasures longing to be polished. Main Street waits year after year to fulfill its potential while the public and private voices debate. Lower Chestnut Street, an ugly entrée to a beautiful village, begs for a facelift. And Grove Street offers some of the last raw material left within the village.
Cooperstown government is relatively large; it has grown considerably in the last decade and is oversized by any measure, especially when considering a concurrent decline in the number of village residents.
Total employment compensation has become a large percentage of the annual budget as public salaries and benefits have increased, here as elsewhere. Clearly this trend needs to be reversed, and one way to do it starts with acknowledging that some functions of village government can be performed under contract.
From time to time the village should obtain bids to perform various administrative and operational functions. Bids provide benchmarks for cost and quality of performance and are a basis to decide whether to streamline an existing function or award a contract to perform it.
Unless village government faces these kinds of “make/buy” (employ/contract) decisions, it cannot claim to have found the best deal for taxpayers.
For as long as it continues to do everything internally without competitive exposure, it will tend to run a job protection program and not fully serve taxpayers.
We realize this when we identify villages, similar in size and complexity to Cooperstown, that function very well with very small staff and a simple organizational structure.
There is no penalty for copying excellent governance; it’s a doorway toward quality services plus savings that can be applied to capital development without raising property taxes.
“… the leaders who will deserve praise in this new era are those who develop a hybrid politics that persuades a majority of voters to cut where we must so we can invest where we must.” Thomas Friedman, Cut Here, Invest There, NYT 12/25/10
Idling, Paid Parking On Trustees’ Agenda
COOPERSTOWN
Public hearings are coming up at on a non-idling law, repeal of a law that would allow paid-parking on Main and Pioneer, and the addition of another couple dozen 15-minute parking spaces downtown.
Comment is being sought at 7:30 Monday, Jan. 24, at the Village Board’s January meeting at 22 Main.
Scroll down for more details, or type "Public Input Sought On Anti-Idling Law, Paid-Parking, 15-Minute-Space Regulations" in the search bar.
Public hearings are coming up at on a non-idling law, repeal of a law that would allow paid-parking on Main and Pioneer, and the addition of another couple dozen 15-minute parking spaces downtown.
Comment is being sought at 7:30 Monday, Jan. 24, at the Village Board’s January meeting at 22 Main.
Scroll down for more details, or type "Public Input Sought On Anti-Idling Law, Paid-Parking, 15-Minute-Space Regulations" in the search bar.
Baseball Hall of Fame Gate Lowest In Decades
By JIM KEVLIN
COOPERSTOWN
Attendance at the National Baseball Hall of Fame dipped to 281,054 in 2010, the lowest gate in decades and 30 percent off the peak year of 1989, when 410,070 visitors made the pilgrimage to baseball’s mecca.
Some of it is temporary, and some is the reflection of a changing, more digital world, said Jeff Idelson, Hall of Fame president, in a phone interview from Baltimore Washington International, where he was en route home the West Coast.
“You’re seeing a downward slippage in our attendance because we’re no different from the rest of the country in terms of what’s going on in the economy and employment and the price of energy,” said Idelson, adding, “There are 18 million people without jobs.”
The other big factor is “induction classes,” he said, which – except for 2006, the Cal Ripken-Tony Gwynn record year, when 84,000 attended – have lacked huge names.
While there have been many great players in the last 20 years, the Baseball Writers Association of America, which votes annually on who will be inducted, are taking a hard stand against players tainted by the steroids scandals, he said.
“You don’t know how the writers will feel about McGwire, Sosa and Clemens,” he said, but Tom Glavin, Greg Maddux and Mike Piazza are among significant stars with drawing power coming under consideration in the years ahead.
After 1989, Hall of Fame attendance slipped slightly, but, with the Major League Baseball strike, it dropped from 407,047 in 1993 to 367,255 in 1994 and 326,344 in 1995.
Except for an upwards bump to 383,556 in 1999, during the Sosa-McGwire home-run spurt, and another in the Ripken-Gwynn year, to 352,755, the numbers have stayed under 350,000.
In 2009, attendance dipped under 300,000 for the first time in a quarter century, to 289,818, and continued the downward trend last year.
“We continually are looking at our business plan,” said Idelson. “We’re continuing to look at ways to stay relevant in a fast-changing world. To the degree we can control things, I feel good about our efforts to drive attend and remain relevant.”
The Hall of Fame’s agreement with EMC – “a worldwide leader in digital archiving and digital storage,” Idelson said – to digitalize the collection at 25 Main, is among the more promising developments.
“This not only allows us to rapidly begin to conserve our collections, but makes them more widely accessible than ever before,” he said. “It opens up so many gateways for us.”
In addition to making collection accessible to pupils across the nation, it allows the Hall “to meet fans of the game in their homes, where they want to be met,” Idelson said.
In the same vein, “One For The Books,” the exhibit opening this spring, will be the Hall’s most interactive exhibit to date, allowing visitors to drill down into the stories behind the records, he said.
COOPERSTOWN
Attendance at the National Baseball Hall of Fame dipped to 281,054 in 2010, the lowest gate in decades and 30 percent off the peak year of 1989, when 410,070 visitors made the pilgrimage to baseball’s mecca.
Some of it is temporary, and some is the reflection of a changing, more digital world, said Jeff Idelson, Hall of Fame president, in a phone interview from Baltimore Washington International, where he was en route home the West Coast.
“You’re seeing a downward slippage in our attendance because we’re no different from the rest of the country in terms of what’s going on in the economy and employment and the price of energy,” said Idelson, adding, “There are 18 million people without jobs.”
The other big factor is “induction classes,” he said, which – except for 2006, the Cal Ripken-Tony Gwynn record year, when 84,000 attended – have lacked huge names.
While there have been many great players in the last 20 years, the Baseball Writers Association of America, which votes annually on who will be inducted, are taking a hard stand against players tainted by the steroids scandals, he said.
“You don’t know how the writers will feel about McGwire, Sosa and Clemens,” he said, but Tom Glavin, Greg Maddux and Mike Piazza are among significant stars with drawing power coming under consideration in the years ahead.
After 1989, Hall of Fame attendance slipped slightly, but, with the Major League Baseball strike, it dropped from 407,047 in 1993 to 367,255 in 1994 and 326,344 in 1995.
Except for an upwards bump to 383,556 in 1999, during the Sosa-McGwire home-run spurt, and another in the Ripken-Gwynn year, to 352,755, the numbers have stayed under 350,000.
In 2009, attendance dipped under 300,000 for the first time in a quarter century, to 289,818, and continued the downward trend last year.
“We continually are looking at our business plan,” said Idelson. “We’re continuing to look at ways to stay relevant in a fast-changing world. To the degree we can control things, I feel good about our efforts to drive attend and remain relevant.”
The Hall of Fame’s agreement with EMC – “a worldwide leader in digital archiving and digital storage,” Idelson said – to digitalize the collection at 25 Main, is among the more promising developments.
“This not only allows us to rapidly begin to conserve our collections, but makes them more widely accessible than ever before,” he said. “It opens up so many gateways for us.”
In addition to making collection accessible to pupils across the nation, it allows the Hall “to meet fans of the game in their homes, where they want to be met,” Idelson said.
In the same vein, “One For The Books,” the exhibit opening this spring, will be the Hall’s most interactive exhibit to date, allowing visitors to drill down into the stories behind the records, he said.
Booan Opens Conversation With Devlin
By JIM KEVLIN
COOPERSTOWN
If the Otsego County Sheriff’s Department assumed 27/4 patrols of Cooperstown, the village could save $250,000 a year, Mayor Joe Booan has concluded.
That caused him to open “informal” conversations about such a plan’s feasibility with County Sheriff Richard J. Devlin, and the two were scheduled to meet Wednesday, Jan. 19, with the Public Safety Committee of the county Board of Representatives to take the conversation to the next level.
“Preliminary work seems to indicate that Otsego County can provide this service, at the level we expect, and save significant cost to the village residents,” Booan said, adding at another point, “Compromising public safety at any cost will not be acceptable.”
Discussions will be part of this year’s budget process, which will begin shortly with the submission of department heads’ proposals. the mayor said. If the idea receives a positive reception, the change could be included in the 2011-12 village budget due for approval by the end of May, he said.
For his part, Sheriff Devlin, who is active in the New York State Sheriffs Association, said several such consolidations have happened around the state.
“I certainly understand why the mayor’s looking at it: The economy’s not that great,” said Devlin, adding his conversations with Booan have suggested there may be benefits for both village and county.
County Rep. Greg Relic, R-Unadilla, who chairs the county’s Public Safety Committee, said that, in advance of meeting with Booan and Devlin, he was short on particulars and had not reached any opinion on the idea’s merit.
Booan said he began thinking about the shared-service possibility after the Good Friday shooting in Cooper Park, when village, county sheriff’s and state police cruisers lined Main and Fair streets around the scene.
A similar incident that dramatized overlapping coverage in the Town of Clay led to that community getting police coverage from the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Department, he said. The Village of Whitesboro, outside Utica, worked out an arrangement with Oneida County.
Discussion and public input might cause the trustees to maintain the status quo, or to contract with the sheriff’s department, or to do something in between, Booan said.
“We shouldn’t be afraid to ask these questions,” the mayor said. “We shouldn’t be afraid to explore the options.”
Now, he said, the police department costs taxpayers $500,000 a year, about half the local tax levy and “one of the largest expenses in the general fund budget.”
“We must face the reality that government spending needs to be responsibly evaluated and planned for the future of this community. We have to determine how to deliver services at the most cost effective options for our residents,” Booan said.
COOPERSTOWN
If the Otsego County Sheriff’s Department assumed 27/4 patrols of Cooperstown, the village could save $250,000 a year, Mayor Joe Booan has concluded.
That caused him to open “informal” conversations about such a plan’s feasibility with County Sheriff Richard J. Devlin, and the two were scheduled to meet Wednesday, Jan. 19, with the Public Safety Committee of the county Board of Representatives to take the conversation to the next level.
“Preliminary work seems to indicate that Otsego County can provide this service, at the level we expect, and save significant cost to the village residents,” Booan said, adding at another point, “Compromising public safety at any cost will not be acceptable.”
Discussions will be part of this year’s budget process, which will begin shortly with the submission of department heads’ proposals. the mayor said. If the idea receives a positive reception, the change could be included in the 2011-12 village budget due for approval by the end of May, he said.
For his part, Sheriff Devlin, who is active in the New York State Sheriffs Association, said several such consolidations have happened around the state.
“I certainly understand why the mayor’s looking at it: The economy’s not that great,” said Devlin, adding his conversations with Booan have suggested there may be benefits for both village and county.
County Rep. Greg Relic, R-Unadilla, who chairs the county’s Public Safety Committee, said that, in advance of meeting with Booan and Devlin, he was short on particulars and had not reached any opinion on the idea’s merit.
Booan said he began thinking about the shared-service possibility after the Good Friday shooting in Cooper Park, when village, county sheriff’s and state police cruisers lined Main and Fair streets around the scene.
A similar incident that dramatized overlapping coverage in the Town of Clay led to that community getting police coverage from the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Department, he said. The Village of Whitesboro, outside Utica, worked out an arrangement with Oneida County.
Discussion and public input might cause the trustees to maintain the status quo, or to contract with the sheriff’s department, or to do something in between, Booan said.
“We shouldn’t be afraid to ask these questions,” the mayor said. “We shouldn’t be afraid to explore the options.”
Now, he said, the police department costs taxpayers $500,000 a year, about half the local tax levy and “one of the largest expenses in the general fund budget.”
“We must face the reality that government spending needs to be responsibly evaluated and planned for the future of this community. We have to determine how to deliver services at the most cost effective options for our residents,” Booan said.
As Party Caucuses Near, Jim Potts Appointed To Village Board Vacancy
COOPERSTOWN
Mayor Joe Booan plans to name Jim Potts to fill the vacancy on the Village Board left by Chuck Hage’s December resignation.
He’s scheduled to make the appointment Monday, Jan. 24, a day before village Democrats and Republicans caucus to nominate candidates for the March 15 village elections.
Both caucuses are at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 25, the Democrats in the firehouse, the Republicans in village hall.
Four trustee vacancies will be up for election, and both parties are striving to field full tickets.
The Democrats reportedly had a full slate, including a retired Bassett Hospital physician, a woman and incumbent Trustee Jeff Katz among them.
On the Republican side, Trustee Matt Schuermann is running for a full term, and Potts and another candidate have stepped forward. At press time, one vacancy remained to be filled.
Potts is vice president of the Special Investigations Division at New York Central Mutual Insurance, Edmeston.
He is industry representative to the state Department of Criminal Justice, and also serves on the boards of the Insurance Fraud Management Panel, New York City Anti Car Theft Association, and the state Special Investigations Units.
He met his wife, Kim, while both were serving in the Air Force, and they returned in 1984 to Cooperstown to raise a family.
Mayor Joe Booan plans to name Jim Potts to fill the vacancy on the Village Board left by Chuck Hage’s December resignation.
He’s scheduled to make the appointment Monday, Jan. 24, a day before village Democrats and Republicans caucus to nominate candidates for the March 15 village elections.
Both caucuses are at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 25, the Democrats in the firehouse, the Republicans in village hall.
Four trustee vacancies will be up for election, and both parties are striving to field full tickets.
The Democrats reportedly had a full slate, including a retired Bassett Hospital physician, a woman and incumbent Trustee Jeff Katz among them.
On the Republican side, Trustee Matt Schuermann is running for a full term, and Potts and another candidate have stepped forward. At press time, one vacancy remained to be filled.
Potts is vice president of the Special Investigations Division at New York Central Mutual Insurance, Edmeston.
He is industry representative to the state Department of Criminal Justice, and also serves on the boards of the Insurance Fraud Management Panel, New York City Anti Car Theft Association, and the state Special Investigations Units.
He met his wife, Kim, while both were serving in the Air Force, and they returned in 1984 to Cooperstown to raise a family.
Caucuses Should Pick Pragmatic Candidates
It’s been stated here often that there’s no Republican pothole or Democratic streetlight. At the local level, issues should be decided on the merits, period.
Still, competition between the two parties plays an important role in recruiting new talent, as has certainly been evident in the Village of Cooperstown.
Well, it’s that time of year again. The parties have scheduled their caucuses for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 25.
Four village trustee seats will be filled in the Tuesday, March 15, elections.
Two are for three-year terms, one for two years, and one for one year.
Incumbents Jeff Katz and Matt Schuermann are expected to run again. Neil Weiller is stepping down after a three-year term. Chuck Hage, appointed for a year, has resigned and Mayor Joe Booan plans an appointment at the January meeting, Monday the 24th.
That means the Village Board will have at least two new faces, or potentially as many as four, a majority.
Here’s the answer to the question a lot of people have been asking: A candidates must run specifically for a three-year, two-year or one-year term.
Regarding the two three-year terms, the ballot will direct you to vote for two candidates. On the two-year term, you will be directed to vote for one candidate. Same with the one-year term.
Because of the controversies of the past year, both parties hope to field full slates, and this is good.
In the selection process, both parties should seek candidates with no ax to grind, who have avoided the personality wars, who will resolve issues on the merits, pragmatically, who want to pursue the well-being of our whole, varied village, not a niche.
And in March, all of us should cast our ballots with those merits in mind.
IF YOU GO: Village caucuses 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 25. Democrats in firehouse; Republicans at village hall.
Still, competition between the two parties plays an important role in recruiting new talent, as has certainly been evident in the Village of Cooperstown.
Well, it’s that time of year again. The parties have scheduled their caucuses for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 25.
Four village trustee seats will be filled in the Tuesday, March 15, elections.
Two are for three-year terms, one for two years, and one for one year.
Incumbents Jeff Katz and Matt Schuermann are expected to run again. Neil Weiller is stepping down after a three-year term. Chuck Hage, appointed for a year, has resigned and Mayor Joe Booan plans an appointment at the January meeting, Monday the 24th.
That means the Village Board will have at least two new faces, or potentially as many as four, a majority.
•
Regarding the two three-year terms, the ballot will direct you to vote for two candidates. On the two-year term, you will be directed to vote for one candidate. Same with the one-year term.
Because of the controversies of the past year, both parties hope to field full slates, and this is good.
In the selection process, both parties should seek candidates with no ax to grind, who have avoided the personality wars, who will resolve issues on the merits, pragmatically, who want to pursue the well-being of our whole, varied village, not a niche.
And in March, all of us should cast our ballots with those merits in mind.
IF YOU GO: Village caucuses 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 25. Democrats in firehouse; Republicans at village hall.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
After 14 Years, WAR Puts Blyleven On Cooperstown Dais With Alomar
 |
| Milo V. Stewart, Jr./National Baseball Hall of Fame Buoyant Robert Alomar and Bert Blyleven smile for the press cameras at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City Thursday, Jan. 6, after they were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame the day before. |
The results of the 2011 Hall of Fame election represented a mix of old-time traditions with newer trends.
With regard to old patterns, Roberto Alomar gained election to the Hall of Fame in his second year of eligibility. Some of the writers belonging to the Baseball Writers’ Association of America chose not to vote for him in his first year, partly because of the longtime philosophy that only a select few should gain the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.
And then there was the case of Bert Blyleven, who was elected on the heels of a strong Internet campaign consisting of younger writers who have adopted Sabermetrics, a more mathematical and analytical way of evaluating players’ greatness.
Alomar earned 90 per cent of the vote, putting him well ahead of the 75 per cent threshold needed for election to the Hall of Fame.
In last year’s voting, Alomar garnered only 73 per cent. The stunning 17 per cent upsurge came partly from writers who traditionally withhold their votes for first-time eligibles and partly from writers who penalized Alomar for spitting at umpire John Hirschbeck in 1996. Alomar, who later apologized for the incident, is now friends with Hirschbeck.
A 12-time All-Star and 10-time Gold Glove winner, Alomar was an acrobatic defensive second baseman who stole bases (474) and hit for average (.300) and power (210 home runs). He also played for winners – two world championship teams with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992 and ‘93.
Blyleven’s journey to Cooperstown was far longer than Alomar’s. The longtime right-hander spent 14 seasons on the ballot.
In his first year, he received a mere 17.5 per cent of the vote. But he gradually gained steam, particularly in recent years, through the aid of a new media influence: the Internet. A number of Internet writers championed Blyleven’s cause by citing less traditional statistics, like “wins above replacement level” (WAR).
Two significant jumps for Blyleven came in the last two years. In 2010, he went from 62 per cent to just over 74 per cent of the vote, missing election by five tallies. This year, his total jumped to 79.7 per cent, plenty good enough to make the grade in Cooperstown.
“Fourteen years of praying and waiting and I want to thank the baseball writers for, I think, finally getting it right,” Blyleven told reporters at a New York City news conference one day after being elected.
Blyleven won 287 games during his career, but he suffered from poor run support, losing an inordinate number of games by scores of 1-0 and 2-1. With better support, Blyleven would have easily surpassed the magical 300-win plateau.
He also finished fourth on the all-time strikeout list and hurled 242 complete games, a figure unheard of in today’s game. Additionally, Blyleven was an underrated postseason performer who posted an ERA of 2.35 in the World Series. He contributed to two world championship teams, with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1979 and another with the Minnesota Twins in 1987.
Although both stars split their careers among multiple teams, there will be no Hall of Fame plaque controversy. Alomar’s plaque will feature the logo of the Blue Jays, where he won his two World Series rings, while Blyleven’s will sport the logo of the Twins, with whom he pitched 11 seasons.
In the meantime, the rest of the 2011 ballot fell far short of election. Former Cincinnati Reds shortstop Barry Larkin finished third in the vote, receiving 62 per cent support. He would need a 15 per cent jump to make it on next year’s ballot, which is lacking in strong first-time candidates. Jack Morris, formerly the ace of the Detroit Tigers, finished at 53.5 per cent of the vote.
Players who have been linked to steroid usage did not do well on this year’s ballot. Mark McGwire garnered only 19.8 per cent. Rafael Palmeiro, who failed a test for performance enhancing drugs, received a mere 11 per cent in his first year on the ballot. Juan Gonzalez, named in the Mitchell Report, earned barely over 5 per cent.
Bruce Markusen, formerly with the National Baseball Hall of Fame, is a writer and commentator on America’s Pastime. His Cooperstown Confidential column can be found regularly at http://bruce.mlblogs.com/
Police Chief: Suspension Followed Parade Dispute
NICOLS SUES VILLAGE OF COOPERSTOWN  |
| Police Chief Diana Nicols |
Jane Forbes Clark was at the center of the dispute that led to Police Chief Diana Nicols’ suspension, according to the chief’s lawsuit against the Village of Cooperstown and Mayor Joe Booan.
Heretofore, it was unknown what final episode prompted the chief’s suspension, but the suit says it involved which police force – the village’s or the state police – should lead the new Legends Parade during Induction Weekend 2010.
According to the suit, served on the village Wednesday, Jan. 5, Jane Clark, who is National Baseball Hall of Fame chair, “complained to Mayor Booan that Chief Nicols had insisted inflexibly that the local police department lead the ... parade.”
When Booan called Nicols to discuss the phone call, the chief “called the chair (Clark) in an effort to clarify her position. Mayor Booan claimed that he had directed her not to call the chair, but that was not true,” the filing says.
The suit also denies Nicols acted “inflexibly,” saying she told “another Hall of Fame official that the police had traditionally led the parade, and that she’d be happy to work the issue out.”
The parade incident is one of several outlined in the suit, which claims the village sought to punish Chief Nicols for seeking to exercise her constitutional rights under the First and 14th amendments:
• By seeking to discipline her for voicing criticism of the Village Board regarding the end of 24/7 police coverage during the public-comment period of a November 2009 meeting.
• Because her father, Henry Nicols, the former Democratic county chair, and her husband, Mark DeLorenzo, had campaigned for Jeff Katz in the 2010 mayoral election instead of Booan.
• Because she said publicly that mould had not been removed from police quarters at 22 Main by month-long renovations last summer intended to do so.
• Because Booan “commented in the press that he was disturbed about police harassment” after a home of a black CCS student was raided by village police. (A review of The Freeman’s Journal and Daily Star files only show that Booan was quoted as saying he was unaware of the raid, and would have liked to have been briefed.)
The suit also references Nicols installing of a GPS in a patrol car, a dispute over a family trip and the denial of compensatory time as evidence of “retaliatory bias.”
“This is a civil service position,” Nicols’ action further states about the police chief job. “She does not serve at the pleasure of the mayor and the board of trustees.”
While the suit details Nicols’ perspective, by its nature it does not reflect differing perspectives that might be held by Clark or Booan, neither of which took the opportunity to comment.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Albany. The chief is represented by the firm, Cooper Ewing & Savage.
Village Attorney Martin Tillapaugh is in conversations with the village’s insurer, SEFCU, to see how much of the legal costs will be covered.
He anticipates the action, even if thrown out at some point, will take “a considerable length of time – many months.”
Democratic Bloc Reelects Dubben
Oneonta’s five Otsego County representatives, all Democrats, made common cause with a GOP bloc to reelect Sam Dubben, R-Middlefield, as chairman of the 13-member county board.
At the reorganizational meeting Jan 5, County Rep. Rich Murphy, D-Town of Oneonta, nominated Dubben, who bested two other Republicans, Jim Powers of South New Berlin and Don Lindberg of Worcester to keep the helm.
At the reorganizational meeting Jan 5, County Rep. Rich Murphy, D-Town of Oneonta, nominated Dubben, who bested two other Republicans, Jim Powers of South New Berlin and Don Lindberg of Worcester to keep the helm.
COOPERSTOWN AND AROUND
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| Paul Donnelly/ The Freeman’s Journal Pianist/singer Eden Brent hugs young fans Matilda Francis, left, and Natalie Shieber, during the Cooperstown Concert Series’ Saturday, Jan. 8, at The Otesaga. (Check Art Beat on "All Otsego Current" for a review) |
BROOKWOOD DATA: The Brookwood Citizens’ Committee is asking the public for photographs, manuscripts and correspondence may help fill information gaps on the site’s historic development. Call the Otsego Land Trust at 547-2366.
GOING MODERN: The Fenimore Art Museum is going modern in 2011, planning exhibits featuring Jackson Pollock and Edward Hopper.
RELAY KICKOFF: The Cooperstown/Northern Otsego County Relay For Life Warm Up 5:30-6:45 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 26, at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The relay is planned Friday-Saturday, May 20-1 at Dreams Park.
STRECKS GATHER TO PARTICIPATE IN DAD’S RECOGNITION
“Night of Silver,” the 2010 Friends of Bassett New Year’s Eve Gala, honored Bassett President/CEO William F. Streck for 25 years of leadership. The gala was attended by 400 and raised $244,483. Proceeds will support expansion of Bassett’s surgical suite. From left are Streck family members: Brian and Kate Berry, Dr. Streck and his wife Karen, Margaret and Patrick Streck, and Molly Streck and Michael Richtsmeier.
Kavanaghs Welcome Third Grandson
 |
| Safely arrived, Will Kavanagh rests. |
Will is the son of Mr. and Ms. Philip Kavanagh and will be welcomed to the family by brothers Nolan, 6, and Tristan, 3.
Philip went to Binghamton University, where he played varsity baseball and graduated with honors. He is now a deputy superintendent of schools in Westchester County.
He also pitched for the Cooperstown/Milford Macs; his brother Christopher was a catcher.
Philip was boat manager at Sam Smith’s for many summers, working with Michael Moffatt. Christopher worked with Michael Coccoma as a law intern. His sister Lynn was employed at Glimmerglass Opera.
CHAIRMAN AGAIN:
With Republicans regaining control of the state Senate, Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, has again been named Insurance Committee chair.
Zdanowiczes Win Lighting Contest
Winners of the Town of Springfield’s annual lighting contest, sponsored by the Springfield Historical Society, are:
• First, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Zdanowicz, Koenig Road
• Second, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Taylor, Bartlett Road
• Third, Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Martz, Route 80
• First, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Zdanowicz, Koenig Road
• Second, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Taylor, Bartlett Road
• Third, Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Martz, Route 80
Lions Club Membership Rises Above 40
Three new members were recently inducted to the Lions Club of Cooperstown, bringing membership to more than 40.
• Mike Cring, Cooperstown Central School Middle/High School principal, sponsored by Lions Club president John Rowley.
• Rick Hulse of Fly Creek, self-employed sponsored by Lion Richie Abbate
• Steve Rinell of Christian Hill, general manager/CEO of Otsego Electric Cooperative, sponsored by Lion Brian Wrubleski.
• Mike Cring, Cooperstown Central School Middle/High School principal, sponsored by Lions Club president John Rowley.
• Rick Hulse of Fly Creek, self-employed sponsored by Lion Richie Abbate
• Steve Rinell of Christian Hill, general manager/CEO of Otsego Electric Cooperative, sponsored by Lion Brian Wrubleski.
RAFFLE WINNER:
John Odell, Cooperstown, won The Smithy Holiday Raffle, giving him free tuition for a class or workshop of his choice.
Richfield Native Encouraged Fallon To Be Entertainer
Richfield Springs native Edward Ehrmann, a career-long teacher who passed away Dec. 21, taught Saturday Night Live comedian Jimmy Fallon during his years at Saugerties High School.
Erhmann encouraged Fallon in his ambition to become an entertainer, and Fallon has declared, “Mr. Ehrmann was his favorite teacher.”
Edward’s brother is George Ehrmann of Richfield Springs.
Erhmann encouraged Fallon in his ambition to become an entertainer, and Fallon has declared, “Mr. Ehrmann was his favorite teacher.”
Edward’s brother is George Ehrmann of Richfield Springs.
Chuck Hage: Time, The Stuff Of Life
Editor’s Note: This is the second of four columns Chuck Hage is writing on his experience as a Cooperstown village trustee. His second topic: Time.
Time is money. In so many ways.
The more time that is required by the mayor to “fight fires” and take corrective actions, the longer financial planning is postponed and the future of the community is diminished.
The more time that is spent by trustees on administrative minutiae, the more opportunities are lost to develop good policy.
The more some people in positions of responsibility create dissension and chaos that are self-serving, instead of carrying out their duties, the harder it is to govern.
The more arrogance pushes aside competence, the more time and money are wasted. The more we tolerate an anemic culture of decision-making, the more we will discourage community talent from serving the public.
Case in point. Main Street is not parking. Main Street is vital to everyone, but is short on vitality, especially in winter.
One key to vitality is development of apartments in upper floors of downtown buildings, a subject addressed in workshops attended by several local people. The elements of an action plan include tax incentives for development and parking spaces leased by the village to building owners.
The economic and social benefits of successful development should put this subject at the top of any list of project priorities. But what occupies the discussion? Revenue from paid parking.
Is it our goal to live in a village that is half dead for lack of vitality? Why do we waste years on a partial problem and ignore the need for a larger solution? We are not small-minded; we simply need teamwork.
This past summer, the mayor held a public hearing to stimulate thinking on the vitality of Main Street. We should all focus on this larger issue and treat parking as one aspect of it. Time spent that way will pay off.
Second case in point. Public service is not a platform. If the mayor and board spend long hours dealing with personnel, they will have little time to plan improvements. If they must constantly respond to contentiousness by a few, their capacity to govern is diminished.
It’s painful to everyone who must deal with poor behavior, and it’s hard for the mayor to govern when individuals demand so much attention at the expense of the community. We pay for service time, not for time out.
Third case in point. The Gateway is not a welcome center. It’s a parking lot and a road. Jurisdictions, regulations and strings attached to federal funds all complicate the management of who does what when, but site design and construction do not involve any rocket science. There is no excuse for being six years down the path with the end in doubt.
Village officials with no expertise in project management should not presume to be in control, fail to perform due diligence, and neglect to report to the community on a timely and responsible basis. Those six years have cost a million dollars and counting. Time is money.
Fourth case in point. Policy is not politics. Attacks on the mayor have been made on the false premise of payback that favors merchants who supported him and punishes employees who did not.
Attacks on the president of Cooperstown Youth Baseball and his wife, a member of the Planning Board of the Town of Otsego, have been made on the false premise of conflict of interest.
In a twisted logic that can be extended to shut down village government, the suggestion was made that three trustees recuse themselves from the topic of paid parking because they own businesses in the village. All this insidious nonsense diverts the mayor and the board away from serving the public and undermines the leadership and teamwork we voted for. What a waste of time and money.
On a more systematic note, due process has been long absent from the functioning of our village government. The large staff and many committees are occupied by individuals who mostly are given no authority and consequently assume no responsibility.
The designation of a committee for every function, intended to cover all bases, creates a high degree of churn with a low level of yield. The trustees constantly deal in board meetings with issues that have not been prepared for presentation by the appropriate department or committee, making the worst of trustee time.
The board even rejected the notion that due diligence should precede a purchasing decision involving a large amount; the decision was not urgent and time could have been taken to save considerable money. A special problem is that committees have not exercised their separate and opposite responsibilities for advocacy and gate-keeping.
If the water department needs a new pump, the case for it should be made by that department, not the finance chair or treasurer, who should qualify the request and make it compete with other requests. Due process takes staff time, but it makes the most of management time and saves taxpayer money.
Time is money. In so many ways.
The more time that is required by the mayor to “fight fires” and take corrective actions, the longer financial planning is postponed and the future of the community is diminished.
The more time that is spent by trustees on administrative minutiae, the more opportunities are lost to develop good policy.
The more some people in positions of responsibility create dissension and chaos that are self-serving, instead of carrying out their duties, the harder it is to govern.
The more arrogance pushes aside competence, the more time and money are wasted. The more we tolerate an anemic culture of decision-making, the more we will discourage community talent from serving the public.
Case in point. Main Street is not parking. Main Street is vital to everyone, but is short on vitality, especially in winter.
One key to vitality is development of apartments in upper floors of downtown buildings, a subject addressed in workshops attended by several local people. The elements of an action plan include tax incentives for development and parking spaces leased by the village to building owners.
The economic and social benefits of successful development should put this subject at the top of any list of project priorities. But what occupies the discussion? Revenue from paid parking.
Is it our goal to live in a village that is half dead for lack of vitality? Why do we waste years on a partial problem and ignore the need for a larger solution? We are not small-minded; we simply need teamwork.
This past summer, the mayor held a public hearing to stimulate thinking on the vitality of Main Street. We should all focus on this larger issue and treat parking as one aspect of it. Time spent that way will pay off.
Second case in point. Public service is not a platform. If the mayor and board spend long hours dealing with personnel, they will have little time to plan improvements. If they must constantly respond to contentiousness by a few, their capacity to govern is diminished.
It’s painful to everyone who must deal with poor behavior, and it’s hard for the mayor to govern when individuals demand so much attention at the expense of the community. We pay for service time, not for time out.
Third case in point. The Gateway is not a welcome center. It’s a parking lot and a road. Jurisdictions, regulations and strings attached to federal funds all complicate the management of who does what when, but site design and construction do not involve any rocket science. There is no excuse for being six years down the path with the end in doubt.
Village officials with no expertise in project management should not presume to be in control, fail to perform due diligence, and neglect to report to the community on a timely and responsible basis. Those six years have cost a million dollars and counting. Time is money.
Fourth case in point. Policy is not politics. Attacks on the mayor have been made on the false premise of payback that favors merchants who supported him and punishes employees who did not.
Attacks on the president of Cooperstown Youth Baseball and his wife, a member of the Planning Board of the Town of Otsego, have been made on the false premise of conflict of interest.
In a twisted logic that can be extended to shut down village government, the suggestion was made that three trustees recuse themselves from the topic of paid parking because they own businesses in the village. All this insidious nonsense diverts the mayor and the board away from serving the public and undermines the leadership and teamwork we voted for. What a waste of time and money.
On a more systematic note, due process has been long absent from the functioning of our village government. The large staff and many committees are occupied by individuals who mostly are given no authority and consequently assume no responsibility.
The designation of a committee for every function, intended to cover all bases, creates a high degree of churn with a low level of yield. The trustees constantly deal in board meetings with issues that have not been prepared for presentation by the appropriate department or committee, making the worst of trustee time.
The board even rejected the notion that due diligence should precede a purchasing decision involving a large amount; the decision was not urgent and time could have been taken to save considerable money. A special problem is that committees have not exercised their separate and opposite responsibilities for advocacy and gate-keeping.
If the water department needs a new pump, the case for it should be made by that department, not the finance chair or treasurer, who should qualify the request and make it compete with other requests. Due process takes staff time, but it makes the most of management time and saves taxpayer money.
Chef Louis Tadross Celebrates Half-Century Working At The Otesaga
By GINA PACHERILLE: COOPERSTOWN
Louis Tadross, who has just marked his 50th anniversary at The Otesaga and its sister, The Cooper Inn, began working in kitchens when he was 12.
“I was sick of asking my dad for money every time I wanted to go the movies,” Tadross, who was raised in Meadville, Pa., recalled in an interview, “so I went to get a job at a diner.”
Tadross worked in the diner for 10 years washing dishes – his boss, Helen Kessler, who died last year at 104, was like a step-mom to him – then enlisted in the National Guard.
After six months active duty, he joined the Treadway company in Meadville as a chef. “The only requirement for the job was that I buy my owns knifes,” he said with a laugh.
He was transferred to Dover, Del., then – on New Year’s Day, 1961 – to The Otesaga, which was being managed by Treadway.
“The first thing I said when I arrived was: Are we ready to go back to Dover yet?” The Otesaga was overwhelming: “I’d never worked for a place that big before.”
Tadross prepared the daily menu, ordered the food and cooked. “It was a lot of work,” he remembered.
Over five decades, Tadross has worked under six managers. After the Treadway era, he saw the Clark family resume oversight of the operation.
“They are great people to work for,” he said. He once worked seven days a week, but is scaling back now. “Maybe I got my work ethic from my father,” said Tadross, recalling his dad toiled on the Erie & Lackawanna Railroad.
Tadross has four children, Matt, Shane, Melissa and Shanna.
Louis Tadross, who has just marked his 50th anniversary at The Otesaga and its sister, The Cooper Inn, began working in kitchens when he was 12.
“I was sick of asking my dad for money every time I wanted to go the movies,” Tadross, who was raised in Meadville, Pa., recalled in an interview, “so I went to get a job at a diner.”
Tadross worked in the diner for 10 years washing dishes – his boss, Helen Kessler, who died last year at 104, was like a step-mom to him – then enlisted in the National Guard.
After six months active duty, he joined the Treadway company in Meadville as a chef. “The only requirement for the job was that I buy my owns knifes,” he said with a laugh.
He was transferred to Dover, Del., then – on New Year’s Day, 1961 – to The Otesaga, which was being managed by Treadway.
“The first thing I said when I arrived was: Are we ready to go back to Dover yet?” The Otesaga was overwhelming: “I’d never worked for a place that big before.”
Tadross prepared the daily menu, ordered the food and cooked. “It was a lot of work,” he remembered.
Over five decades, Tadross has worked under six managers. After the Treadway era, he saw the Clark family resume oversight of the operation.
“They are great people to work for,” he said. He once worked seven days a week, but is scaling back now. “Maybe I got my work ethic from my father,” said Tadross, recalling his dad toiled on the Erie & Lackawanna Railroad.
Tadross has four children, Matt, Shane, Melissa and Shanna.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Famous Painting Of Coopers At Louvre May Be Rehung At Hyde Hall In Replica
By JIM KEVLIN
COOPERSTOWN
‘An icon” in American painting may soon be represented at Hyde Hall, where Samuel F.B. Morse’s original “Gallery of the Louvre” hung for 15 years in the mid-19th century.
The original work, painted in 1832-33 in Paris and now owned by the Terra Foundation for American Art in Chicago, is worth $3.25 million. But the foundation has agreed to make a full-size copy, 6 feet by 9 feet, to hang where the original did from 1834 to 1850 at the National Historic Landmark on Hyde Bay.
“Gallery at the Louvre” – James Fenimore Cooper and family members are depicted in it – was
MORSE/From A1
“one of the most complex paintings completed by an American artist up to that time,” said historic preservationist Gib Vincent, a consultant for Hyde Hall.
Morse created his own version of the Louvre’s Salon Carre. On the walls, he painted what he considered the museum’s most notable paintings – “Mona Lisa,” plus works by Rubens, Raphael, Titian and Rembrandt.
The girl in the foreground being instructed by Morse may be Susan Fenimore Cooper, the novelist’s daughter. Cooper can be seen declaiming to his wife and another daughter in the corner at left.
Morse – he also invented the Morse Code, partly at the Masonic Building in Cherry Valley – intended to tour the nation with the painting, charging 25 cents a head for people to view it, but he abandoned the idea. (Bierstadt and Frederic Church later did so very successfully, Vincent said.)
Morse then offered it for sale for $2,500, and it was purchased in 1834 by George Clarke, the country squire and businessman who built the Hyde Hall mansion. He paid $1,200.
When Clarke died the following year, his son and heir, 12-year-old George Hyde Clarke, assumed ownership. In 1850, he sold it to James Townsend of Albany, whose daughter, Julia Townsend Monroe, donated it to Syracuse University in 1892.
There it languished, out of sight, for decades. Vincent went to Syracuse in the 1970s to see it, but was told it was boxed away, inaccessible. In 1992, however, the university recognized its value, unearthed it and sold it at auction to Daniel Terra, a wealthy shoe manufacturer with an interest in art. The price was the highest for an American painting up to that time.
Terra has since passed away, but his foundation does loan the canvas out from time to time. Last year, Vincent said, it was shown at the “American Stories” exhibit at the Met.
Hyde Hall’s effort to obtain a copy was initiated by Mitch Owens of Sharon Springs, editor of ELLE DÉCOR magazine and a Hyde Hall board member, who called to clarify the situation after an item published last week reported the original was en route.
Owens had contacted the Terra, and it was agreed that a full-size Giclée print of the original would be made. Reproduced on canvas, it would have some of the texture of the original.
While the print will be complete by August, Vincent said Hyde Hall is still raising the money to acquire it, frame it with an appropriate frame and transport it here.
The picture would hang on the far wall of the parlor, the room to the left as you enter the mansion.
 |
| Jim Kevlin/The Freeman’s Journal Gib Vincent, the historic preservationist and Hyde Hall consultant, said a full-size replica of Samuel F. B. Morse’s “Gallery of the Louvre,” which depicts James Fenimore Cooper and his family, will be available in August to be hung at the National Historic Landmark. |
COOPERSTOWN
‘An icon” in American painting may soon be represented at Hyde Hall, where Samuel F.B. Morse’s original “Gallery of the Louvre” hung for 15 years in the mid-19th century.
The original work, painted in 1832-33 in Paris and now owned by the Terra Foundation for American Art in Chicago, is worth $3.25 million. But the foundation has agreed to make a full-size copy, 6 feet by 9 feet, to hang where the original did from 1834 to 1850 at the National Historic Landmark on Hyde Bay.
“Gallery at the Louvre” – James Fenimore Cooper and family members are depicted in it – was
MORSE/From A1
“one of the most complex paintings completed by an American artist up to that time,” said historic preservationist Gib Vincent, a consultant for Hyde Hall.
Morse created his own version of the Louvre’s Salon Carre. On the walls, he painted what he considered the museum’s most notable paintings – “Mona Lisa,” plus works by Rubens, Raphael, Titian and Rembrandt.
The girl in the foreground being instructed by Morse may be Susan Fenimore Cooper, the novelist’s daughter. Cooper can be seen declaiming to his wife and another daughter in the corner at left.
Morse – he also invented the Morse Code, partly at the Masonic Building in Cherry Valley – intended to tour the nation with the painting, charging 25 cents a head for people to view it, but he abandoned the idea. (Bierstadt and Frederic Church later did so very successfully, Vincent said.)
Morse then offered it for sale for $2,500, and it was purchased in 1834 by George Clarke, the country squire and businessman who built the Hyde Hall mansion. He paid $1,200.
When Clarke died the following year, his son and heir, 12-year-old George Hyde Clarke, assumed ownership. In 1850, he sold it to James Townsend of Albany, whose daughter, Julia Townsend Monroe, donated it to Syracuse University in 1892.
There it languished, out of sight, for decades. Vincent went to Syracuse in the 1970s to see it, but was told it was boxed away, inaccessible. In 1992, however, the university recognized its value, unearthed it and sold it at auction to Daniel Terra, a wealthy shoe manufacturer with an interest in art. The price was the highest for an American painting up to that time.
Terra has since passed away, but his foundation does loan the canvas out from time to time. Last year, Vincent said, it was shown at the “American Stories” exhibit at the Met.
Hyde Hall’s effort to obtain a copy was initiated by Mitch Owens of Sharon Springs, editor of ELLE DÉCOR magazine and a Hyde Hall board member, who called to clarify the situation after an item published last week reported the original was en route.
Owens had contacted the Terra, and it was agreed that a full-size Giclée print of the original would be made. Reproduced on canvas, it would have some of the texture of the original.
While the print will be complete by August, Vincent said Hyde Hall is still raising the money to acquire it, frame it with an appropriate frame and transport it here.
The picture would hang on the far wall of the parlor, the room to the left as you enter the mansion.
Fracking Foe On DEC Helm
Governor Cuomo has nominated environmentalist Joseph Martens as Environmental Conservation commissioner, and first indications are he may resist hydrofracking in the Marcellus Shale.
Pressconnects.com, the Binghamton Sun-Bulletin Web site, is quoting a speech where he called fracking “the most difficult and daunting” challenge DEC has faced in 40 years.
Cuomo also extended his predecessor’s moratorium.
SWEARING-INS: Otsego County’s new congressmen, Republicans Richard Hanna and Chris Gibson, were to be sworn in Wednesday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
HERE, TEXAS: Trustee Neil Weiller said he will split his time between here and Austin, Texas, after leaving the Village Board April 1.
Pressconnects.com, the Binghamton Sun-Bulletin Web site, is quoting a speech where he called fracking “the most difficult and daunting” challenge DEC has faced in 40 years.
Cuomo also extended his predecessor’s moratorium.
SWEARING-INS: Otsego County’s new congressmen, Republicans Richard Hanna and Chris Gibson, were to be sworn in Wednesday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
HERE, TEXAS: Trustee Neil Weiller said he will split his time between here and Austin, Texas, after leaving the Village Board April 1.
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| E. Lawrence Budro/ The Freeman’s Journal Tony Casale, the former assemblyman and Cooperstown political consultant, and wife Theresa were where the action was locally on New Year’s Eve: The Friends of Bassett gala at The Otesaga. |
Judge Burns Decries Scourge
Remarks Surprise Swearing-In Crowd
By JIM KEVLIN
COOPERSTOWN
Three Otsego County people died of heroin overdoses in 2010.
Heroin arrests have occurred in Richfield Springs and Oneonta high schools.
“There are hundreds of thousands of dollars of heroin here in Otsego County,” County Judge Brian R. Burns of Oneonta told a full house in the Otsego County Courthouse’s main courtroom New Year’s Day shortly after he had been sworn in for a second 10-year term.
“I can’t emphasize enough how much that’s changed,” he continued. “Heroin was simply not a problem. It’s going to be the biggest problem in the next 10 years.”
That the judge chose to highlight such an issue at an event that typically focuses more on ceremony and thanks suggests how severe he views the challenge.
State Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, sworn in for a 13th term, and county Sheriff Richard J. Devlin,
SCOURGE/From A1
Jr., sworn in for a second, kept more to form, thanking their families and supporters, and discussing the challenges ahead.
In his remarks, Seward did note the lack of “stable and responsible leadership” in Albany in recent years.
“I love New York,” he said. “But our state is crumbling.”
Drue Quakenbush, an Oneonta high school student, sang the National Anthem at the outset, and led the audience in “America The Beautiful” at the end.
The Rev. Mark Michael, rector, Christ Episcopal Church, Cooperstown, delivered opening and recessional prayers.
In further comments outside the building, Burns said heroin has become “as available as marijuana.” Previously, he said, it was of poor quality, requiring it to be injected; now, it can simply be inhaled.
And no one is spared.
“Stay-at-home moms in their 40s are being arrested for selling it and for using it,” said the judge. In another instance, a graduate student tried heroin at a college party and was hooked.
Shortterm, Burns said, the quickest response is what the district attorney and police are doing: finding sellers and arresting them.
 |
| County Judge Brian D. Burns is sworn in by State Supreme Court Judge Michael V. Coccoma. Burns’ wife, Elizabeth, holds the Bible while their children, from left, Meg, Kevin and Tony, look on. |
By JIM KEVLIN
COOPERSTOWN
Three Otsego County people died of heroin overdoses in 2010.
Heroin arrests have occurred in Richfield Springs and Oneonta high schools.
“There are hundreds of thousands of dollars of heroin here in Otsego County,” County Judge Brian R. Burns of Oneonta told a full house in the Otsego County Courthouse’s main courtroom New Year’s Day shortly after he had been sworn in for a second 10-year term.
“I can’t emphasize enough how much that’s changed,” he continued. “Heroin was simply not a problem. It’s going to be the biggest problem in the next 10 years.”
That the judge chose to highlight such an issue at an event that typically focuses more on ceremony and thanks suggests how severe he views the challenge.
State Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, sworn in for a 13th term, and county Sheriff Richard J. Devlin,
SCOURGE/From A1
Jr., sworn in for a second, kept more to form, thanking their families and supporters, and discussing the challenges ahead.
In his remarks, Seward did note the lack of “stable and responsible leadership” in Albany in recent years.
“I love New York,” he said. “But our state is crumbling.”
Drue Quakenbush, an Oneonta high school student, sang the National Anthem at the outset, and led the audience in “America The Beautiful” at the end.
The Rev. Mark Michael, rector, Christ Episcopal Church, Cooperstown, delivered opening and recessional prayers.
In further comments outside the building, Burns said heroin has become “as available as marijuana.” Previously, he said, it was of poor quality, requiring it to be injected; now, it can simply be inhaled.
And no one is spared.
“Stay-at-home moms in their 40s are being arrested for selling it and for using it,” said the judge. In another instance, a graduate student tried heroin at a college party and was hooked.
Shortterm, Burns said, the quickest response is what the district attorney and police are doing: finding sellers and arresting them.
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| State Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, greets his aunt, Dora Fowler of Roxbury, after he was sworn in for his 13th term Saturday, Jan. 1, at the Otsego County Courthouse. Ms. Fowler, 91, is the oldest teacher in New York State, as well as the longest serving. At left is one of the senator’s sisters, Leona Hoag. |
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| County Sheriff Richard J. Devlin, Jr., is sworn in by County Judge John Lambert. The sheriff’s wife, Laurie, hold the Bible. |
Alomar, Blyleven HoF Front-Runners
By GINA PACHERILLE
COOPERSTOWN
Roberto Alomar, considered by some to be the best second baseman in history, maybe an inductee into the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the time you read this.
Pitcher Bert Blyleven, on the ballot for the 14th and final time, was being mentioned in the same breath, although perhaps not quite as emphatically.
The results of the 2011 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot were expected to be announced Wednesday, Jan. 5, after this edition went to press. The ballot featured 33 players; 14 holdovers from previous elections and 19 newcomers.
Any candidate who receives votes on 75 percent of the ballots – Alomar and Blyleven were one vote short last year – earns entry into baseball’s Valhalla.
Alomar played 17 seasons as a second baseman for the Padres, Blues Jays, Indians, White Sox, Orioles, Mets and Diamondbacks, is facing his second year on the ballot. He was the 1992 ALCS MVP, the 1998 All-Star Game MVP and he won two World Series with the Blue Jays.
Blyleven pitched 22 seasons for the Twins, Rangers, Angels, Indians and Pirates. He was named the Rookie Player of the Year in 1970 by The Sporting News and the Comeback Player of the Year in 1989.
The inductees will be introduced by Jane Forbes Clark, chairman of the Hall of Fame board, Thursday at a press conference at the Waldorf Astoria.
COOPERSTOWN
Roberto Alomar, considered by some to be the best second baseman in history, maybe an inductee into the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the time you read this.
Pitcher Bert Blyleven, on the ballot for the 14th and final time, was being mentioned in the same breath, although perhaps not quite as emphatically.
The results of the 2011 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot were expected to be announced Wednesday, Jan. 5, after this edition went to press. The ballot featured 33 players; 14 holdovers from previous elections and 19 newcomers.
Any candidate who receives votes on 75 percent of the ballots – Alomar and Blyleven were one vote short last year – earns entry into baseball’s Valhalla.
Alomar played 17 seasons as a second baseman for the Padres, Blues Jays, Indians, White Sox, Orioles, Mets and Diamondbacks, is facing his second year on the ballot. He was the 1992 ALCS MVP, the 1998 All-Star Game MVP and he won two World Series with the Blue Jays.
Blyleven pitched 22 seasons for the Twins, Rangers, Angels, Indians and Pirates. He was named the Rookie Player of the Year in 1970 by The Sporting News and the Comeback Player of the Year in 1989.
The inductees will be introduced by Jane Forbes Clark, chairman of the Hall of Fame board, Thursday at a press conference at the Waldorf Astoria.
New Year’s Gala Honoring Dr. Streck Raises $244,483, Exceeded Only Once
By GINA PACHERILLE
COOPERSTOWN
Dr. William F. Streck was honored at this year’s New Year’s Eve gala – “Nuit d’Argent” – at The Otesaga, and it was a full house.
“Tickets sold out early,” gone before Thanksgiving, said Scott Barrett, executive director of the Friends of Bassett, which organizes the annual event.
Streck marked his 25th anniversary as Bassett Healthcare’s CEO/president in 2010.
This year’s theme, “Nuit d’Argent” -- “night of silver” -- lived up to its promise, raising $244,483, the second-best year on record, said Barrett. That included $40,000 from the silent auction.
In addition to the guest of honor, Barrett credited the gala’s sponsored, New York Central Mutual Insurance, Edmeston, and SEFCU, the credit union, with the evening’s success.
He also gave credit to Gayle Smith, Auction Committee chair, and the other chairs.
The money raised will go towards the construction and capital needs of a new high-tech operating suite at Bassett Hospital.
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| E. Lawrence Budro/The Freeman’s Journal Begowned celebrants waiting for their escorts included, from left, Corinne Hahn, Ellen Morley, Cindy Seward and Dot Marsh. |
COOPERSTOWN
Dr. William F. Streck was honored at this year’s New Year’s Eve gala – “Nuit d’Argent” – at The Otesaga, and it was a full house.
“Tickets sold out early,” gone before Thanksgiving, said Scott Barrett, executive director of the Friends of Bassett, which organizes the annual event.
Streck marked his 25th anniversary as Bassett Healthcare’s CEO/president in 2010.
This year’s theme, “Nuit d’Argent” -- “night of silver” -- lived up to its promise, raising $244,483, the second-best year on record, said Barrett. That included $40,000 from the silent auction.
In addition to the guest of honor, Barrett credited the gala’s sponsored, New York Central Mutual Insurance, Edmeston, and SEFCU, the credit union, with the evening’s success.
He also gave credit to Gayle Smith, Auction Committee chair, and the other chairs.
The money raised will go towards the construction and capital needs of a new high-tech operating suite at Bassett Hospital.
New York Can Regain ‘Empire’ Status
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s inaugural address, delivered at noon Saturday, Jan. 1. He was expected to announce a wage freeze for state employees during his first State of the State address Wednesday, Jan. 5.
During this campaign, Bob (Duffy, former mayor of Rochester and new lieutenant governor) and I had the opportunity to visit all 62 counties once again. And doing it in a relatively compressed period of time, it’s just a beautiful reminder of the assets that we have in this state.
From the falls of Niagara to the powerful waves of Montauk, we have it all and everything in between. We really have every asset that man or God could be expected to give to a place.
That is the State of New York, and I saw that up close and personal. I also saw up close and personal the suffering that our people are facing and the devastating toll that this economy has taken. And it cannot be underestimated.
Young people all across upstate New York who are leaving because they believe there is no economic future left.
The taxpayers on Long Island who are imprisoned in their homes because they can’t afford to pay the property taxes anymore, but the value of the home has dropped so low that they can’t afford to sell the house because they can’t pay off the mortgage.
The laid-off construction worker in Brooklyn who can’t find a job and is fretting about what he’s going to do to feed his family when the unemployment insurance runs out.
This, my friends, cannot be underestimated. And to make it actually worse, people then feel betrayed by their government. That they have problems, they have needs, they look to the government and they assume the government was going to be there to help them because that’s what government is supposed to be all about.
...People all across the state, when you mention state government they are literally shaking their heads. Worse than no confidence, what they’re saying is, is no trust. The words “government in Albany” have become a national punch line. And the joke is on us. Too often government responds to the whispers of the lobbyists before the cries of the people. Our people feel abandoned by government, betrayed and isolated, and they are right.
New York faces a deficit. A deficit that we talk about all day long, the budget deficit, the budget deficit. But it’s actually worse. The state faces a budget deficit and a competence deficit and an integrity deficit and a trust deficit. And those are the obstacles we really face.
...As governor, I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do, because I told you what I’m going to do. I told the people all across this state. This was a different kind of campaign. Bob and I put together a very specific agenda. And we said we wanted to win not with the personal mandate – This was not about electing Andrew Cuomo and Bob Duffy; this was electing a mandate for change that the people of this state endorsed overwhelmingly all across this state.
We have a very specific mandate for change that the people want. And our expectation is that the politicians and the elected officials of people are now going to do what the people voted for and what the people need.
It starts with jobs, jobs, jobs, getting the economy running once again. Getting the economy running all across this great state.
Number 2 is going to be cleaning up Albany and restoring trust because Bob is right, you have nothing without trust. Any relationship is only as good as the level of trust, and we have lost the trust. And we are not going to get it back until we clean up Albany and there’s real transparency and real disclosure and real accountability and real ethics enforcement.
...We have to pass a property-tax cap in the State of New York because working families can’t afford to pay the ever-increasing tax burden. Nothing is going up in their lives. Their income isn’t going up, their banking account isn’t going up, their savings aren’t going up. They can’t afford the never-ending tax increases in the State of New York and this state has no future if it is going to be the tax capital of the nation. We have to send that signal this session by passing a property-tax cap.
And my friends, we must rightsize the state government for today. The state government has grown too large, we can’t afford it, the number of local governments has grown too large, and that we’re going to have to reduce and consolidate.
During this campaign, Bob (Duffy, former mayor of Rochester and new lieutenant governor) and I had the opportunity to visit all 62 counties once again. And doing it in a relatively compressed period of time, it’s just a beautiful reminder of the assets that we have in this state.
From the falls of Niagara to the powerful waves of Montauk, we have it all and everything in between. We really have every asset that man or God could be expected to give to a place.
That is the State of New York, and I saw that up close and personal. I also saw up close and personal the suffering that our people are facing and the devastating toll that this economy has taken. And it cannot be underestimated.
Young people all across upstate New York who are leaving because they believe there is no economic future left.
The taxpayers on Long Island who are imprisoned in their homes because they can’t afford to pay the property taxes anymore, but the value of the home has dropped so low that they can’t afford to sell the house because they can’t pay off the mortgage.
The laid-off construction worker in Brooklyn who can’t find a job and is fretting about what he’s going to do to feed his family when the unemployment insurance runs out.
This, my friends, cannot be underestimated. And to make it actually worse, people then feel betrayed by their government. That they have problems, they have needs, they look to the government and they assume the government was going to be there to help them because that’s what government is supposed to be all about.
...People all across the state, when you mention state government they are literally shaking their heads. Worse than no confidence, what they’re saying is, is no trust. The words “government in Albany” have become a national punch line. And the joke is on us. Too often government responds to the whispers of the lobbyists before the cries of the people. Our people feel abandoned by government, betrayed and isolated, and they are right.
New York faces a deficit. A deficit that we talk about all day long, the budget deficit, the budget deficit. But it’s actually worse. The state faces a budget deficit and a competence deficit and an integrity deficit and a trust deficit. And those are the obstacles we really face.
...As governor, I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do, because I told you what I’m going to do. I told the people all across this state. This was a different kind of campaign. Bob and I put together a very specific agenda. And we said we wanted to win not with the personal mandate – This was not about electing Andrew Cuomo and Bob Duffy; this was electing a mandate for change that the people of this state endorsed overwhelmingly all across this state.
We have a very specific mandate for change that the people want. And our expectation is that the politicians and the elected officials of people are now going to do what the people voted for and what the people need.
It starts with jobs, jobs, jobs, getting the economy running once again. Getting the economy running all across this great state.
Number 2 is going to be cleaning up Albany and restoring trust because Bob is right, you have nothing without trust. Any relationship is only as good as the level of trust, and we have lost the trust. And we are not going to get it back until we clean up Albany and there’s real transparency and real disclosure and real accountability and real ethics enforcement.
...We have to pass a property-tax cap in the State of New York because working families can’t afford to pay the ever-increasing tax burden. Nothing is going up in their lives. Their income isn’t going up, their banking account isn’t going up, their savings aren’t going up. They can’t afford the never-ending tax increases in the State of New York and this state has no future if it is going to be the tax capital of the nation. We have to send that signal this session by passing a property-tax cap.
And my friends, we must rightsize the state government for today. The state government has grown too large, we can’t afford it, the number of local governments has grown too large, and that we’re going to have to reduce and consolidate.
Chuck Hage: Measure Revenues AND Costs
Editor’s Note: This is the first of four columns Chuck Hage is writing on his experience as a Cooperstown village trustee. His first topic: Money.
COOPERSTOWN
Living in a village is about the people. Governing a village is about the money. Where does it come from, where does it go, and at what velocity? When people have the answers, accountability is at work. But village taxpayers must be informed enough and must care enough to ask the right questions, and even if they are and they do, they are up against it. By “it” I mean the apparatus of public service that finds accountability too heavy a burden to be carried on with discipline.
To be realistic about public accountability, understand that the moment you pay a dollar in taxes, it is instantly converted into a non-dollar because you no longer own it and neither does anyone else. Public officials who allocate non-dollars do not feel any personal monetary loss. The only persons who will value non-dollars are those who receive payment as employees, suppliers, and service providers.
At the moment they’re paid, the public non-dollar becomes their private dollar, restored to value. So under penalty of law you give your valued dollars to people you have voted to trust and they dispose of your money through a system of devaluation. It’s the nature of the beast and a reason the beast is difficult to tame, even by people who have earned your trust. Accountability takes homework and teamwork by many knowledgeable, caring people.
Gertrude Stein phrased it well in 1936 when she wrote: “Everybody now just has to make up their mind. Is money money or isn’t money money. Everybody who earns it and spends it every day in order to live knows that money is money; anybody who votes it to be gathered in as taxes knows money is not money. That is what makes everybody go crazy.”
Here in the village, much has been made over the last three years about the revenues derived from paid parking and how they offset property taxes. But note that you’ve heard no accounting of the costs incurred to run paid parking or how much those costs subtract from revenues even in aggregate.
Such costs include purchase, installation, maintenance, repair and upgrade of machines, as well as labor to collect parking fees, issue tickets, train employees, assist customers and do accounting.
The proponents of paid parking avoid cost accounting and claim that your property taxes are reduced dollar-for-dollar not by a net amount but by a gross amount. This is part of covering up the non-dollar reality of waste on the inside by calling for more real-dollar revenue from the outside.
Now look at the indirect effects of paid parking. Marginal sales can be lost by retailers due to paid parking, less business can be a tipping point for store closures, fewer stores can reduce commercial property values, and the property tax burden can be shifted more toward residents.
Since these effects are not measured, we don’t know their magnitude, so we can’t claim that paid parking has been a success. For all we know, the net effect may be harmful.
Governing a village is not all about the money; money is the medium. The value proposition is really what we’re after, with the first rule being, Do No Harm. Unfortunately, the petty ambitions of some, aided by the weakness of others, have harmed the village, and for the past year the mayor has been occupied with overdue corrective action.
His challenge is to overcome the source of harm and address the constructive aspects of the value proposition: Are operations efficient, are the important things getting done, are budget levels appropriate? In governing a village, waste is a terrible thing. Until it’s attacked and limited, no one should try to justify a larger public role. Unless we recognize that everything competes for limited resources and put priority on the important things, progress will not be made on any broad front.
Only by stopping the harm, eliminating the waste, and focusing on what’s important, can village government justify its budget and gain the strength to take initiatives.
We each want the best bang for our buck. We don’t start with a fixed ratio between public spending for the common good and private spending for our individual good. We willingly allocate dollars to public spending if, and only if, we are confident that we will receive good value in return. Cooperstown has some distance to travel in this direction. It’s about the money and it’s also about the value. As Albert Einstein said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
COOPERSTOWN
Living in a village is about the people. Governing a village is about the money. Where does it come from, where does it go, and at what velocity? When people have the answers, accountability is at work. But village taxpayers must be informed enough and must care enough to ask the right questions, and even if they are and they do, they are up against it. By “it” I mean the apparatus of public service that finds accountability too heavy a burden to be carried on with discipline.
To be realistic about public accountability, understand that the moment you pay a dollar in taxes, it is instantly converted into a non-dollar because you no longer own it and neither does anyone else. Public officials who allocate non-dollars do not feel any personal monetary loss. The only persons who will value non-dollars are those who receive payment as employees, suppliers, and service providers.
At the moment they’re paid, the public non-dollar becomes their private dollar, restored to value. So under penalty of law you give your valued dollars to people you have voted to trust and they dispose of your money through a system of devaluation. It’s the nature of the beast and a reason the beast is difficult to tame, even by people who have earned your trust. Accountability takes homework and teamwork by many knowledgeable, caring people.
Gertrude Stein phrased it well in 1936 when she wrote: “Everybody now just has to make up their mind. Is money money or isn’t money money. Everybody who earns it and spends it every day in order to live knows that money is money; anybody who votes it to be gathered in as taxes knows money is not money. That is what makes everybody go crazy.”
Here in the village, much has been made over the last three years about the revenues derived from paid parking and how they offset property taxes. But note that you’ve heard no accounting of the costs incurred to run paid parking or how much those costs subtract from revenues even in aggregate.
Such costs include purchase, installation, maintenance, repair and upgrade of machines, as well as labor to collect parking fees, issue tickets, train employees, assist customers and do accounting.
The proponents of paid parking avoid cost accounting and claim that your property taxes are reduced dollar-for-dollar not by a net amount but by a gross amount. This is part of covering up the non-dollar reality of waste on the inside by calling for more real-dollar revenue from the outside.
Now look at the indirect effects of paid parking. Marginal sales can be lost by retailers due to paid parking, less business can be a tipping point for store closures, fewer stores can reduce commercial property values, and the property tax burden can be shifted more toward residents.
Since these effects are not measured, we don’t know their magnitude, so we can’t claim that paid parking has been a success. For all we know, the net effect may be harmful.
Governing a village is not all about the money; money is the medium. The value proposition is really what we’re after, with the first rule being, Do No Harm. Unfortunately, the petty ambitions of some, aided by the weakness of others, have harmed the village, and for the past year the mayor has been occupied with overdue corrective action.
His challenge is to overcome the source of harm and address the constructive aspects of the value proposition: Are operations efficient, are the important things getting done, are budget levels appropriate? In governing a village, waste is a terrible thing. Until it’s attacked and limited, no one should try to justify a larger public role. Unless we recognize that everything competes for limited resources and put priority on the important things, progress will not be made on any broad front.
Only by stopping the harm, eliminating the waste, and focusing on what’s important, can village government justify its budget and gain the strength to take initiatives.
We each want the best bang for our buck. We don’t start with a fixed ratio between public spending for the common good and private spending for our individual good. We willingly allocate dollars to public spending if, and only if, we are confident that we will receive good value in return. Cooperstown has some distance to travel in this direction. It’s about the money and it’s also about the value. As Albert Einstein said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
Monday, January 3, 2011
Former Professor Galvanized Opposition To Fracking
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| Adrian Kuzminski and wife, Antoinette, at their farm in the Fly Creek Valley, their home since 1980. |
As recently as a month ago, you would have seen him front and center at the Otsego County Board of Representatives’ meeting.
Sixty-something, neatly trimmed beard, signature vest and piercing eyes, he had brought 50 like-minded people, including wife Antoinette, to urge the county’s legislative body to take a stand against “horizontal hydrofracking,” a term few of us knew anything about a year ago but now – in large part, due to him – can discuss quite knowledgeably.
You would have noticed Adrian Kuzminski and, if you hadn’t yet met him, would certainly have said to yourself, “Who is that guy?” How many people have asked themselves that question in the past 30 years?
For, whether you’ve been involved in local planning and zoning, Democratic (or Green) politics, environmental issues (from “Motorless Otsego” through windmills and, now, natural-gas drilling), anti-war activism – any aspect of public life, really – you would have bumped into the great “Kooz-MEEN-ski,” as he announces himself on the answering machine of his Fly Creek Valley home.
This year, however, he’s outdone himself.
While many people have stepped forward to oppose hydrofracking – Lou Allstadt, the retired Mobil executive; Nicole Dillingham, president, Otsego 2000; Simon Thorpe, president/CEO, Brewery Ommegang, and private citizens like Fly Creek’s John Kosmer and Hartwick’s Jim Herman immediately come to mind – Kuzminski is in the front ranks with them.
He’s written letters to the editor and op-eds aplenty, spoken at forums, helped organize public meetings and protests, but two things push him to the forefront:
• One, the burgeoning sustainableotsego listserve, (to join, e-mail sustainableotsego-subscribe@lists.riseup.net), in effect, a new medium that allows instant communication between 500-plus subscribers.
“Suddenly, people became aware they weren’t alone in their concerns,” said Kuzminski.
• Two, unrelated to gas drilling: for keeping the 22-acre former estate Brookwood Garden, one of the last public points of contact with Otsego Lake, in the public sphere in perpetuity, under the umbrella of the Otsego Land Trust.
The transfer of the property was announced in August, but it grew out of objections raised to the state Attorney General’s Office in 2009 by Kuzminski and three friends, Ron Bishop, James Dean and Michael Whaling.
The proceeds of the prospective sale to now-Congressman Richard Hanna would have created an environmental fund. But, Kuzminski said, “We would be losing a tangible asset for something much more ephemeral. It was too high a price to pay.”
When Adrian Kuzminski arrived here from a tenured professorship at the University of Hawaii in 1980, he was a young 36, but had covered a lot of territory, geographical and intellectual, by that point.
He was born in Washington, Pa., outside Pittsburgh, in 1944, the son of a priest in the Polish National Catholic Church, which broke away from Roman Catholicism in 1897 over a dispute in Scranton, Pa. Both sets of Adrian’s grandparents were involved in that initial break, which was led by the austere Father (later Bishop) Francis Hodur, (whom the young Kuzminski met before his death in 1953. “He was the first person I ever saw with long hair.”)
He was 12 when his father was assigned to a parish in Rochester, where at 3,000-student Benjamin Franklin Junior-Senior High School he entered a circle of “brainy kids playing chess” and tracking the stats of his beloved Pittsburgh Pirates – a highpoint before “greed and drugs” ruined the game was Bill Mazeroski’s World Series-winning home run in 1960.
The Polish National Catholic Church provided Adrian with an intellectual tradition – his parents wanted him to follow his father into the priesthood – but its rigidity rankled.
“It made me suspect of authority,” he said in one of two interviews for this article. “It made me think about metaphysical questions. These issues were raised, but they were not explained to me.”
In any event, “the broader world beckoned,” and he went off to Amherst in 1962 to study history and philosophy just as Kennedy era idealism was at its height.
“There were huge problems – assassinations, riots, much more volatile than today,” he recalled. “But there was also a sense: People can respond; problems can be solved.”
Remember, pre-Facebook, how colleges would published books with mug shots and particulars of their undergrads? Adrian saw Smith College’s and was particularly taken by one long-haired young lady. He called her and their first date was to see “Black Orpheus,” the 1959 classic, which they both enjoyed and then debated.
In his senior year – T’nette, her nickname, was a year behind him – they dashed off to a justice of the peace in nearby Shutesbury over their parents’ objections, (and later staged two separate ceremonies but the benefit of their families.)
“Love. We were in love. Isn’t that why people get married?” he remembered. The marriage is in its 44th year.
He began work on his master’s in history at the University of Rochester, and by 1970 the couple was off to Ireland; he’d received a Fulbright and a designation of Woodrow Wilson scholar to pursue his doctorate at Trinity College, Dublin.
His topic was George “If a tree falls in the forest...” Berkeley (pronounced BARK-lee, although BERKE-ley, Calif., is named for him) and his “immaterialism.” Any surprises? “That he owned slaves. I was surprised. I probably shouldn’t have been. It probably says more about me than it does about him.”
As he dove into his studies, T’nette, who had studied liberal arts undergraduate, began the pre-med studies that eventually led them to Cooperstown, where she is still an internist at Bassett Hospital. Their first son, Stefan, now a computer programmer and entrepreneur in Westchester County, was born.
As the year wound down, Kuzminski heard from a friend who was dissatisfied with a position at the University of Hawaii; the friend left his job, and recommended Adrian to replace him, and so the young family left Dublin’s gloom for Oahu’s sunlight.
“Hawaii is the future,” he says today. “A small place with finite resources that was overcrowded” – 800,000 people in an area two-thirds the size of Otsego County.
He plunged into teaching the history of philosophy and new intellectual interests.
One was Pyrrho, a Greek philosopher who accompanied Alexander to India, was exposed to Buddhism, and sought to incorporate it into Greek thought. Pyrrho separated knowledge – what is provable – from belief, and posited the latter as “the source of human distress.”
Another was Jefferson’s concept of a “ward republic,” where – New-England-town-meeting-like – most of governance would be conducted by “citizen assemblies” at the local level. A third, Wittgenstein’s empiricism.
In 1977, the Kuzminskis returned to Cooperstown for T’nette’s residency; they had first visited in the ‘60s, when her sister was a Bassett resident. Second son, Jan, was born then; he now teaches English in Vietnam.
By that time, Derrida’s deconstructionism held sway in academe, and Kuzminski became disillusioned with being a professor. There was too much relativism; “I wasn’t happy in that environment.”
And so the family returned to Otsego County, where T’nette joined Bassett. They found a house on Donlon Road, and Adrian spent two years turning it into a bright, welcoming home.
He was “philosopher in residence” at Hartwick College, and filled in while professors took sabbaticals, but he never taught fulltime again. The family raised Angus cattle; lately, they’ve shifted to sheep, mostly Romneys. His parents, Edward and Janina Kuzminski, moved from the father’s final assignment, in Rome, to Grove Street; they have since passed away.
Kuzminski’s first foray into local activism happened almost by accident: A neighbor, Hank Forster, Town of Otsego Planning Board member, asked him in the mid ’80s if he’d like to join the board.
At the time, as Kuzminski tells it, longtime Supervisor Bob Murdock had experienced a rift with the GOP powers that were, and he courted Democrat B.J. O’Neil, then Planning Board chair. In exchange for Democratic support, Murdock would agree to allow the Planning Board to pursue zoning.
By the time zoning moved to the hearing stage, Kuzminski was Planning Board chair and facing “a big brouhaha.” There were 250 people at the hearing, “yelling and screaming: You can’t tell me what to do with my land.”
A new administration was voted in at town hall, but “the zoning law survived, even though they kicked me and everyone else out.” (Two decades later, Cooperstown attorney Michelle Kennedy is exploring how local zoning laws may be used to keep gas drilling out of a municipality, so Kuzminski’s effort is coming full circle.)
During this period, the Kuzminskis were raising their boys, who – T’nette recalls – called their father “The Wizard,” because he knew “everything.” She shoots a question at him: When did Democracy take hold in the Ottoman Empire?
The family remembers the father, lost in thought, sitting in an armchair in the corner of the kitchen, by the wood stove. Once, Jan ran up to him: He had been stabbed in the neck with a pen. The father calmly removed the pen and returned to his reading.
In the ’90s, Kuzminski became involved in the campaign against a large expansion to the boat launch at Glimmerglass State Park. He and Michael Whaling conceived “Motorless Otsego,” which came up with various exercises to dramatize threats to Otsego Lake, the source of Cooperstown’s drinking water, including a lecture by Andy Mele, author of “Polluting for Pleasure.”
About that time, Kuzminski was drawn to the Green Party, which had won “ballot status” in New York State in 1998 when Al Lewis of “Granpa Munster” fame polled 50,000 votes for governor.
He attended the Green Party’s convention in 2000 in Denver, served on the party’s state committee and worked for Ralph Nader’s campaign in 2000. He founded the Otsego Greens, and ran for county board in 1999.
As this century began, he sought to raise the visibility of anti-Iraq-War sentiment, with efforts peaking at a rally that drew 200 people to Templeton Hall in March 2007.
Later that year came the founding of Sustainable Otsego, spurred by reports that “peak oil” had been achieved, and it was now a declining resource. A highpoint was a lecture by Sarah James, co-author of “The Natural Step of Communities: How Cities and Towns Can Change to Sustainable Practices.” Raised in Cooperstown, she returned to speak to a crowd at the county courthouse.
It was Sustainable Otsego that birthed the listserve, an idea suggested to Kuzminski by Cooperstown’s Russ Honicker. But it was hydrofracking – Adrian was at the village’s Board of Water Commissioners when the issue first arose – that started the listserve humming.
“That’s where I realized, this is coming to our area,” he said. “Then, we realized what we were up against, how big this was.”
At the informational and organizational meetings that followed – in Cherry Valley, in Oneonta, among the 200 protesters at the county courthouse in August – Kuzminski would distribute a pad and folks would add their e-mail addresses; the list grew from about 100 to five times that.
With The Freeman’s Journal the only weekly covering the issue and the Daily Star doing so only periodically, Kuzminski reasoned, “We don’t have enough local media. No radio. No TV. No website. This list filled this vacuum to some extent.”
More than 6,000 posts have gone up this year. In November, 586 e-mails were posted; by Christmas Day, 468 e-mails had been exchanged during December.
The posts include debate on tactics among “The Coalition,” local environmental groups loosely collaborating in the anti-fracking fight and, sharing of Web sites and news reports, and some original news: It’s likely many local people first heard on the listserve that Governor Paterson had extended a moratorium through June by executive order.
The listserve helped raise the visibility of “Gasland,” and anti-drilling movie that featured flames coming out of a water faucet. And it includes such experts as Walter Hang, the Ithaca uber-environmentalist, sketching out what’s to come.
For his part, Kuzminski has tried to stay ahead of the issue. For instance, he returned from the People’s Oil and Gas Summit in Pittsburgh in November with new research out of Cornell that finds methane “dirtier than coal. It’s dirtier than any other fossil fuel.”
During his time on Otsego County, Kuzminski has completed three books and is working on a fourth.
“The Soul” was published in 1994, and argues “soul” provides a means of perception beyond body and mind. Given the lengthy process of academic publishing, “Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism,” and “Fixing the System: A History of Populism, Ancient and Modern,” were both published in 2008.
His next book has the working title, “The People’s Money: How to End the Usurious Economic & Obtain a Sustainable Economy.” Interest on loaned money, which requires growth to repay the debt, has put us on a treadmill, Kuzminski said.
“...It’s created overshot,” added T’nette. “Overshot” – perhaps the foe of all these battles.
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