Beneath the portrait of white-haired Riley J. Warren, his predecessor, from the 19-teens, Otsego County Treasurer Dan Crowell is drilling down into numbers that will make sense of county government. Reserves are low, revenues skewed toward the volatile sales tax, and that’s just the beginning.
At Oneonta City Hall, the new mayor, Dick Miller, has shown the City of the Hills is spending $1 million more annually than it’s been taking in, masking the deficit by dipping into reserves. In two years, it will be broke. He and Common Council intend to forestall that.
In the Richfield Springs Central School District, Superintendent Bob Baracco has reached out a hand of collaboration to the town and village. Project One: A new Little League field. Project Two: A school-town-village garage, perhaps.
In the Town of Springfield, Supervisor Bill Elsey, sworn in Jan. 5, hit the ground running, quickly deploying six citizen task forces. One is developing regulations to protect town roads if gas drilling goes forward; another is exploring appropriate economic development – an assisted-living community, perhaps – to provide jobs, contribute to the tax base, and yet leave that lovely community unmarred.
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This is exciting stuff. Yes, communities can chart their own destinies, if they care enough, think and collaborate.Poor Cooperstown, though some have called ye the “crown jewel of Otsego County.” A bit scuffed and scratched these days, for sure, it is missing out on all this intellectual ferment, this hope for the future – all this fun! – as local government after local government comes to grips with the challenges of long neglect.
If you had sat and watched village board meetings for the past two years, you would have been dismayed by the intransigence of Mayor Carol B. Waller and, mystifyingly, Deputy Mayor Jeff Katz and Trustee Lynne Mebust – two otherwise brainy people – in the face of sensible approaches to village governance.
As village budget projections for 2009-10 fluctuated widely from meeting to meeting, newly elected trustees Joe Booan and Willis Monie began to ask for the kind of data Crowell and Miller are working on. Instead of joining his new colleagues, Katz, who chairs the Finance Committee, told them they would understand village budgeting when they had the experience he had.
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As it turned out, it was Katz who lacked the understanding – and the open-mindedness to seek it – when $400,000 the village didn’t know it had turned up at the last minute. Further exploration by Booan and Trustee Eric Hage, again over the resistance of Waller, Katz and Mebust, discovered the village was determining its financial status by its checkbook balance. In fact, its “net equity” – the measure recommended by the village’s Utica-based auditors – showed a dramatic deterioration in the village government’s financial health.The financial crisis facing the Cooperstown Central School District – 10 teachers and staffers may go, along with French, and JV football and field hockey, as taxes go up 9 percent – shows our purported prosperity as a community hangs by a thread. We simply need to build value.
Look at Sharon Springs’ hulking and empty hotels from its spa heyday. Success isn’t inevitable, or eternal. There’s a need to adjust to changing conditions, to prepare for the future, and invest in it.
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When Booan, Monie, Hage and Trustee Neil Weiller pushed for long-range financial planning, Waller, Katz and Mebust, inexplicably, saw no need for trying to understand where the trends are going (down) and how to turn them around.At the March 1 Candidates’ Forum, Mebust expressed surprise that, once the effort got under way, she found the Secretary of State’s Office encourages long-range financial planning, and has a step-by-step procedure for it.
Efforts to achieve win-win scenarios – parking for the fire department, optimum deployment of the police force, prioritizing of street repair – were undercut as the Waller-Katz-Mebust troika again and again redefined the issues in narrow, fragmenting, win-lose ways.
As a result, accomplishments have been paltry. Not a single idea in the vaunted Notre Dame study has been implemented. The 2025 Commission died a’borning. Meddling almost derailed the 22 Main Restoration Committee – after it had languished for two years. Paid parking – not rocket science – descended into bickering and recriminations, the trustees dragging the community at large with them.
Add Carol and Bill Waller’s efforts to sabotage the two-party system, the letter-writing campaign, and lately the apparent hijacking of the Sugarland announcement for political purposes (with, sadly, the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce drawn into the charade), and you have to conclude: Enough is enough.
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Happily, we can convert all that into yesterday’s news if, Tuesday, March 16, we voters of Cooperstown embrace tomorrow and elect Joseph J. Booan, Jr.. He has the experience, knowledge and temperament to systematically move Cooperstown, step by well-placed step, into a better future.That can be expressed with confidence, because he’s done it. If you want proof, take a quick drive down to the Milford BOCES, the bright, cheerful, upbeat vocational school that Booan continuously nudged ahead – incrementally, with big results – during nine years at the helm. (He was recently promoted to BOCES’ director of curriculum.)
Booan administered a $4 million budget; Cooperstown’s is $1 million. Booan oversaw more than 100 staff and professionals; Cooperstown has 29. He is not going to find that part of this job a big challenge.
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Mayor Waller has wielded a wicked gavel, hammering into silence colleagues and citizens she doesn’t happen to agree with, while allowing supporters full sway. Booan’s patience and calm at acrimonious board meetings is exceptional and impressive. In a Booan Administration, we can expect a new and welcome atmosphere of amity in village government.Some of the village’s key managers – Treasurer Mary Ann Henderson, Public Works Superintendent Brian Clancy and Police Chief Diana Nicols – have been underachievers in the crises of the past year. But they are, to a person, capable individuals. Under mature, disciplined leadership, it’s likely they – as well as the new Zoning Enforcement Officer Tavis Austin – will flower. As for Village Clerk Teri Barown, the sky’s the limit. It’s exciting to think how she might function as the village’s chief executive officer to Booan’s chairman of the board.
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Regrettably, Katz and Mebust – smart people, interested in our community – have shown they simply lack the mindset to systematically approach the financial, conceptual and community-building challenges we face. If past is prelude, they simply aren’t going to do what’s needed.That’s OK; there are community roles for them to fill. Katz is particularly interested in the Cooperstown Concert Series; Mebust, in quality parks. Go for it.
For the helm, happily, there’s Joe Booan, a professional through and through, and broad-gauged to boot. Let’s give him the opportunity to try another, more promising way, away from the rocky road of recent years.
Tuesday, March 16, the polls will be open from noon to 9 p.m. at the Chestnut Street firehouse. Let’s elect Joe Booan.
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