It’s Revolutionary: They Ask Questions; Seek Answers

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There is no conspiracy. 
“We’re trying to get answers,” explained Willis J. Monie, Jr., one of the four trustees who transformed the Cooperstown Village Board in 2009.  “When we don’t understand things, we keep asking.”
That spirit of inquiry, by Monie and his fellow freshman Joseph J. Booan Jr., plus veterans Eric Hage and Neil R. Weiller, has set “America’s Most Perfect Village” on a new course.
It’s a course built on facts, not politics or pique.
It’s built on an understanding of the village’s true and precarious financial position – all four mention $20 million in delayed maintenance must be underwritten by a $5 million budget; and that, when the Brooklyn Avenue project is done, the village’s streets reserve will have disappeared.
‘America’s Most Perfect Village®” – it’s a heavy burden to bear.
The operative word is “most” – while we declare we’re closer to blessed perfection than anywhere else, we don’t claim to be perfect, period, (i.e., “America’s Perfect Village.”)
Living in Cooperstown is a delight, but it’s hard to ignore indications around us that we’re on a slippery slope in the wrong direction.
“America’s Slightly Less Most Perfect Village Than The Year Before” might be more like it.

It’s built on looking ahead to a happier time – based on a happier time the four remember from local boyhoods – and planning for it, rather than being buffeted by every passing storm.
The new wind through 22 Main prompted The Freeman’s Journal & Richfield Springs NEWSPAPER to select Trustees Booan, Hage, Monie and Weiller as its four Citizens of The Year for 2009.

What are the flashpoints that brought us to today:
• March 2007, Hage was elected as an independent with bipartisan support, but as he began to question village finances, found himself shunted aside.  “I wasn’t going to change my beliefs just to get along with people on the board,” he said.
• November 2007, public anger over paid parking proposed for downtown erupted, as 300 citizens harangued the village board for three hours at a hearing at CCS’ Sterling Auditorium.
• March 2008, Democratic Trustee Grace Kull, rattled by the parking dispute, declined to run again.  Republican Weiller, identified as a public advocate in the parking dispute, led the ticket.  Democratic Trustee Jeff Katz, identified as pro-paid-parking, barely squeaked back on.
• March 2008-2009, both Hage and Weiller were shunted aside by Mayor Carol B. Waller, assigned to low-priority committees and often gaveled out of order.  “They only made me stronger,” Weiller said recently.  “And they only made me stronger in the eyes of the public.”
(Weiller, however, did succeed in getting a Sustainability Committee approved, and one accomplishment of that period was forward movement in returning mini-hydro to the Susquehanna at Mill Street.)
• March 2008, two Republicans, Booan and Monie, won election in the midst of the trustees preparing what appeared to be an austerity budget.
• May 2008, in the 11th budgeting hour, Village Treasurer Mary Ann Henderson discovered $400,000, and the trustees shoveled in additional spending at the last minute. 
Monie and Booan, however, in addition to Hage and Weiller, were troubled by what had happened.  “She was trying to be forthright,” Monie said of Henderson.  “We just didn’t get it, and we just kept at it.”
Meanwhile, Mayor Waller’s fairly dependable five-person majority had disappeared, with the four finding themselves voting in a bloc frequently.
• June 18, the trustees convened for the first time as a Long-Range Planning Committee – a Hage idea – to try to discover where village finances are headed.
• August 2008, Hage, after consulting with the village auditor, Moore & Hart of Utica, announced the discovery that the trustees and Henderson had been looking at the wrong number:  cash flow, rather than “net equity.” 
While $400,000 had turned up, the budget actually drained the village’s net equity from $1.8 million to $1.3 million.
Also that month, Police Chief Diana Nicols and Mebust, Police Committee chair, began agitating for an additional $38,000, removed from the budget, to ensure 24/7 patrols in the village.
• November 2008, after being berated by Nicols, the trustees emerged from executive session and Booan proposed adding $6,000 to ensure 24/7 coverage until a new officer returns from the academy at the end of January.  The motion was passed with rare unanimity.

What now?

The new bloc intends to pursue the professionalizing of village government.
In interviews, streamlining the trustees’ 24 committees was frequently suggested. 
So was pro-active budgeting, where the trustees set priorities and prepare a budget reflecting those priorities, rather than simply slashing department-heads’ proposals. (“To me,” said Booan, “the process is backwards.”)
So was the idea of recruiting a professional village administrator, a form of government that had lapsed in the mid-’90s.
“I want to have a plan that guides our decisions,” said Booan.  “There’s not a clearly defined plan now.”