We’re All In ‘It’ Together, But Tackling ‘It’ Differently

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Spending a couple of days in Stamford underscores the inter-related nature of the towns in and around Otsego County today, historically and – more to the point – tomorrow.
To begin with a little inside baseball, it was interesting to discover that Simon Bolivar Champion of Bloomville, a hamlet between Stamford and Delhi, apprenticed in Cooperstown in the 1840s for John Prentiss, then publisher of The Freeman’s Journal, Hometown Oneonta’s sister.
He applied the lessons he learned to create the Bloomville Mirror, which he later moved to Stamford.  It evolved into the Mirror-Recorder, and continued to publish into 1992.

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Like many of our downtowns – with the exception of Cooperstown, perhaps  – Stamford’s has been challenged in recent years:  by the opening of I-88, by Scotch Valley Ski Resort’s bankruptcy and by the ease in getting to Oneonta just a few miles west on Route 23.
This year alone, however, Stamford (and nearby Hobart, to a lesser degree), has obtained $3.5 million in state Main Street and Restore New York grants to renovate venerable, but deteriorating, downtown buildings.
While Hobart is getting only $500,000 of that, it’s enough to redo six buildings, including the former Delaware Valley Propane Co. plant, which will then house the Liberty Tree Book Store, expanded to 85,000 volumes.
Hobart is becoming ever-more successful as “Book Village of the Catskills” – a brand it’s been promoting for five years – but promoter Don Dales believes Liberty Tree’s expansion will hit “critical mass,” catapulting the tiny village into the book-selling stratosphere.
Brand-wise, Stamford is taking lessons from Hobart.  Oneonta, which is undergoing a brand-building exercise now, could likewise benefit.
That tiny Hobart – it’s about the size of Schuyler Lake or Milford – can make big things happen means Cherry Valley, Springfield Center, Middlefield, Milford and Hartwick can as well.

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Another lesson:  attorney Mike Jacobs, believing Stamford’s population of 1,200 – Cooperstown has 1,900 – was too small to support a fulltime police department, was able to convince the powers-that-be in Albany to assign two more troopers to the area.
When former mayor Anne Slatin pressed ahead with plans for a full-time police department regardless, Jacobs ran for mayor in March 2009 and defeated the incumbent.
There’s a question worth asking as the Otsego County Sheriff’s Department and Cooperstown village police press to expand:  As costly local forces grow, does it simply mean state police will cut back their presence?
In other words, does more local money invested in police mean no greater police protection?
Mayor Jacobs would have an opinion or two on that.

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Another quick one – we could go on and on – is the Catskill Watershed Corp.’s $2 million renovation of Stamford’s historic Delaware Inn.
As former Oneonta Mayor John S. Nader discovered with Bresee’s, private financing alone couldn’t make the project viable.  The public piece – public investment, if you will – was needed.
(Delaware County’s Clark Foundation equivalents – the Robinson Broadhurst and O’Connor foundations – are in the thick of all this; could the Clark play a fuller role in community revitalization here?)
The Delaware Inn experience brings to mind the $7.5 million in public money obtained to make Bresee’s viable.  It closed the gap, allowing a private developer to take on the project and make money.
Once complete, Bresee’s offices and apartments and the Delaware Inn’s conference center will be catalysts for the revival of their individual downtowns.  It’s not Communism, but simply common sense.

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There’s an intrinsic logic to all of these projects – Eklund Farm Machinery’s owners are planning a processing plant for the Stamford area’s organically grown meat, an idea that would make sense across our rural region.
One community’s thought-provoking ideas can inspire another.  One community’s experience can show another community it’s on the right path.
Once a month during 2010, our reporters will be spending a day or two in a town in our region that most of us might not usually happen to visit.  From the Stamford experiment, we can anticipate the rest will have a lot to share as well.