TEMPORARY Trauma Spurs Decisive Action At Foothills

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You can look at it a couple of ways.
One, Foothills Performing Arts Center was extraordinarily unlucky to nearly complete an $8 million building in the worst economic dip n in decades.
Two, Oneonta and the Otsego County arts-creating and arts-consuming community is extraordinarily lucky to have a nearly completed, brand-new, state-of-the-art, $8 million performing arts center a half-step away from completion.
This week, the Foothills PAC board prudently decided to scale back operations for the winter – hibernate for a while, if you will:  it’s the season – while adjusting its planning and strategy to a new reality.
Oneonta’s new mayor, Dick Miller, had it exactly right the other day when he said Foothills, as well as the Oneonta Theater, are “challenged financially IN THE SHORT TERM” – our caps – but “they offer a wonderful future for the performing arts.”

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City Hall has contributed little to date to Foothills; the funding has been from Albany. 
So it’s makes sense, particularly given Mayor Miller’s focus on a new round of downtown revitalization, to step up now.
A thriving Foothills is the logical – and dynamic – center to the arts, entertainment and dining hub that will define the successful downtown of the future.
Main Street Oneonta’s members – the many restaurants, in particular – would garner a better than dollar for dollar benefit from Foothills’ success. 
This is also the time for the city’s arts entities to pull together – Orpheus and other theater groups, the Catskill Symphony and other musical ventures, the galleries – and collaborate in making a world-class structure come alive.

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Otsego County’s Albany delegation held forth at the Otsego Chamber’s annual State of the State luncheon the other day, and got it exactly wrong.
This is not the time for state government to slash and burn, as Messrs. Seward, Magee, Butler and Lopez suggested to a man; save that for boom times.
Their member items have helped bring Foothills – and Glimmerglass Opera, which is suffering similarly at the other end of Route 28 – this far.  The community, businesses and City Hall need to step up, but our state legislators – and county Board of Representatives, for that matter – must, too.
Make this community asset a community venture.