1-29-11
To the Editor:
The residents of Cooperstown will have to make a choice when they vote for mayor for the first time in over a decade and a half. After years of a Union Ticket followed by unopposed mayoral candidates, Trustees Jeff Katz and Joe Booan are facing off this March.
Jeff Katz and I have been friends for eight years. I know he has all the fine qualities one has a right to expect from any public servant: smart, sincere, honest, hard working, fair, considerate, dependable and loyal.
Jeff is a solid family man, devoted husband and father, with great moral conviction. While I have not known Joe as long, he clearly has outstanding talent. I supported Joe for trustee and believe over the last nine months he has worked hard for Cooperstown, a place he deeply loves.
And for me, the deciding difference between the two men is length of experience in office. Jeff Katz has worked hard for the village over the last five years, bringing in desperately needed new revenue through concerts, pay and display machines, and fees at Doubleday Field. Jeff has increased the reserves for both our volunteer fire department and our beautiful village parks.
I am convinced that as mayor, Jeff Katz will work tirelessly on behalf of all of us and deserves your vote as well as mine.
PAUL T. KUHN
Cooperstown
To the Editor:
Annual reports by the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), Friends of Music and Art (FOMA) Sports Boosters and Cooperstown Foundation for Excellence in Education (CFEE) were presented to the school board at our Jan. 13 meeting.
These should not go unrecognized. Cooperstown schools are very fortunate to have so many dedicated volunteers and generous residents who keep their respective school-related organizations active and productive. A full array of activities and events they sponsored over the past year for students and residents was truly impressive.
New audio equipment, summer music camp scholarships, after school tutoring, guest writers and performers, sponsorship of clubs and the CCS Quiz Team, Kid Garden, a new Entrepreneur Club, concession stands for sports event, the annual All Sports Banquet, and Cabaret Night are examples from a list too long to include here. These
groups bring enrichment to students through enhancements for basic academics, support of art and music activities, and extra curricular opportunities. And all are done through the spark of volunteerism and donations from people and businesses in our community.
TONY SCALICI
President
& CCS School Board
To the Editor:
While the 22 Main St. Committee appreciates the interest of The Freeman’s Journal in this important community project, it is possible readers may receive the impression from the Jan. 22 editorial that little progress was made at the meeting held at the village hall recently.
In fact, members of the committee were gratified at the level of participation, the support of the village trustees and the mayor, the interest of numerous members of the community and, in particular, the prospect of collaboration with The Friends of the Library.
The 22 Main project will require broad-based community support and the committee welcomes participation and input from one and all.
AMANDA MAY
22 Main Restoration
Committee Member
Cooperstown
Enjoy this compendium of Otsego County news from AllOtsego.life, The Freeman's Journal and Hometown Oneonta newspapers. Use the search bar to locate specific topics, names, places, and articles. We are currently in the process of putting our archives on this site, but please enjoy what we have gathered so far! (We work on this weekly!)
Friday, February 4, 2011
“I’m supporting Jeff Katz for mayor,” Mayor Carol B. Waller
1-29-11
After all the support she’d voiced for her Democratic deputy mayor, Mayor Carol B. Waller sat mute as the village Republican Party, chaired by her husband Bill, nominated its own candidate, Trustee Joe Booan, by acclamation.
While she kept her counsel during the best-attended GOP village caucus in memory, perhaps in history – it packed 70 people into the 22 Main meeting room on Thursday, Jan. 21 – the mayor hadn’t changed her mind.
“I’m supporting Jeff Katz for mayor,” she repeated earlier this week, saying she believes his longer tenure on the village board better qualifies him.
Village Democrats, as anticipated, had nominated Katz at their own caucus, in the same room 24 hours earlier, attended by two dozen of the party faithful.
They also nominated Trustee Lynne Mebust for a second term, and village Democratic chair Richard Abbate for the seat now filled by Trustee Eric Hage, an independent who decided not to run again.
Over the weekend, however, Abbate had second thoughts and withdrew. He was replaced by Sally Eldred, retired executive director of the Greater Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, who moved to the village five years ago.
For the two trustee vacancies, the Republicans nominated Doug Walker, proprietor of 2 Chestnut B&B who also ran two years ago, and Alton B. “Chip” Dunn, III, a Laurens Central School teacher long-active in the Cooperstown fire department and EMS squad.
Democrats nominated Leslie Freedman and Republicans Mike Molloy for the village justice position being vacated by Enid Hinkes.
Mayor Waller had announced last March that she would be supporting Katz, who she’d designated deputy mayor, to replace her in village elections now upcoming on Tuesday, March 16.
Her husband, as Republican chairman, when questioned about the potential conflict of interest, had insisted everything would be
above board. Still, as of Monday, Jan. 18, three days before the GOP caucus, he had recruited no one to run for mayor or trustee.
That evening, Joe Booan, a BOCES administrator elected village trustee last year, announced he would seek the top job, and his supporters sprung into action to forestall what they feared was an impending Waller coup on Katz’s behalf.
Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, Booan supporters manned the phones, urging Republicans to attend Thursday’s caucus and vote their views.
It later circulated that Bill Waller had been lining up proxy votes that he would then cast on Katz’s behalf. Whether he was doing so or not – Waller denies it, saying proxy votes aren’t even allowed in a caucus – a push for Katz never materialized.
The Democratic caucus went forward routinely – Katz cited his longer tenure on the board in his acceptance remarks – but by 7 p.m. the next evening, every seat in the 22 Main meeting room was taken, and attendees were backed up into the hallway.
County GOP Chair Sheila Ross nominated Bill Waller as caucus chair, and he was approved. When he called for nominations for mayor, Helen Chetner, Booan’s Irish Hill neighbor, nominated him; Lee Malone seconded.
Addressing the caucus, Booan, who was recently promoted from Milford BOCES principal, recalled finding old equipment – training vehicles, on average, were 26 years old – a deteriorating plant and a fragmented staff on arriving there nine years ago, (issues that, to a degree, parallel current municipal challenges.)
It took a while, but all of those issues have been resolved, he said, in particular “getting everybody on one bus going in one direction.”
Any more nominations? Waller asked. “There being none, I cast one vote in the affirmative for the nominee.”
The room burst into applause.
Bill Waller said the caucus was the best attended in his 30 years involved in local politics. He researched earlier village GOP caucuses in The Freeman’s Journals, going back several decades, and hadn’t found one to match this one.
Asked if the local Republican Party would be giving this year’s slate the same kind of support given to past candidates, Waller said he didn’t know and that the decision would be made by committee; he didn’t know when that committee might meet.
The backdrop of last week’s events was a year of transition on the village board, and two new trustees – Booan and Willis J. Monie, Jr. – discovered they were of a mind with two other trustees, Hage and Neil Weiller, in their concern about the village’s declining financial picture.
The four found themselves voting as a bloc on numerous questions, with Waller, Katz and Mebust in opposition. Some see the March election as a referendum on the two approaches.
Katz, 47, a retired trader on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, moved to the village a half-dozen years ago with his wife and three sons. In addition to elective office, he published “The Kansas City A’s & The Wrong Half of the Yankees,” a history of New York’s use of the A’s as a farm team.
Booan, 44, is currently one of two directors at ONC BOCES, seconds-in-command to Superintendent Nick Savin. A fourth-generation Cooperstownian, he was a school counselor in Virginia, where he met his wife, Lisa, before moving home. The couple has two children.
After all the support she’d voiced for her Democratic deputy mayor, Mayor Carol B. Waller sat mute as the village Republican Party, chaired by her husband Bill, nominated its own candidate, Trustee Joe Booan, by acclamation.
While she kept her counsel during the best-attended GOP village caucus in memory, perhaps in history – it packed 70 people into the 22 Main meeting room on Thursday, Jan. 21 – the mayor hadn’t changed her mind.
“I’m supporting Jeff Katz for mayor,” she repeated earlier this week, saying she believes his longer tenure on the village board better qualifies him.
Village Democrats, as anticipated, had nominated Katz at their own caucus, in the same room 24 hours earlier, attended by two dozen of the party faithful.
They also nominated Trustee Lynne Mebust for a second term, and village Democratic chair Richard Abbate for the seat now filled by Trustee Eric Hage, an independent who decided not to run again.
Over the weekend, however, Abbate had second thoughts and withdrew. He was replaced by Sally Eldred, retired executive director of the Greater Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, who moved to the village five years ago.
For the two trustee vacancies, the Republicans nominated Doug Walker, proprietor of 2 Chestnut B&B who also ran two years ago, and Alton B. “Chip” Dunn, III, a Laurens Central School teacher long-active in the Cooperstown fire department and EMS squad.
Democrats nominated Leslie Freedman and Republicans Mike Molloy for the village justice position being vacated by Enid Hinkes.
Mayor Waller had announced last March that she would be supporting Katz, who she’d designated deputy mayor, to replace her in village elections now upcoming on Tuesday, March 16.
Her husband, as Republican chairman, when questioned about the potential conflict of interest, had insisted everything would be
above board. Still, as of Monday, Jan. 18, three days before the GOP caucus, he had recruited no one to run for mayor or trustee.
That evening, Joe Booan, a BOCES administrator elected village trustee last year, announced he would seek the top job, and his supporters sprung into action to forestall what they feared was an impending Waller coup on Katz’s behalf.
Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, Booan supporters manned the phones, urging Republicans to attend Thursday’s caucus and vote their views.
It later circulated that Bill Waller had been lining up proxy votes that he would then cast on Katz’s behalf. Whether he was doing so or not – Waller denies it, saying proxy votes aren’t even allowed in a caucus – a push for Katz never materialized.
The Democratic caucus went forward routinely – Katz cited his longer tenure on the board in his acceptance remarks – but by 7 p.m. the next evening, every seat in the 22 Main meeting room was taken, and attendees were backed up into the hallway.
County GOP Chair Sheila Ross nominated Bill Waller as caucus chair, and he was approved. When he called for nominations for mayor, Helen Chetner, Booan’s Irish Hill neighbor, nominated him; Lee Malone seconded.
Addressing the caucus, Booan, who was recently promoted from Milford BOCES principal, recalled finding old equipment – training vehicles, on average, were 26 years old – a deteriorating plant and a fragmented staff on arriving there nine years ago, (issues that, to a degree, parallel current municipal challenges.)
It took a while, but all of those issues have been resolved, he said, in particular “getting everybody on one bus going in one direction.”
Any more nominations? Waller asked. “There being none, I cast one vote in the affirmative for the nominee.”
The room burst into applause.
Bill Waller said the caucus was the best attended in his 30 years involved in local politics. He researched earlier village GOP caucuses in The Freeman’s Journals, going back several decades, and hadn’t found one to match this one.
Asked if the local Republican Party would be giving this year’s slate the same kind of support given to past candidates, Waller said he didn’t know and that the decision would be made by committee; he didn’t know when that committee might meet.
The backdrop of last week’s events was a year of transition on the village board, and two new trustees – Booan and Willis J. Monie, Jr. – discovered they were of a mind with two other trustees, Hage and Neil Weiller, in their concern about the village’s declining financial picture.
The four found themselves voting as a bloc on numerous questions, with Waller, Katz and Mebust in opposition. Some see the March election as a referendum on the two approaches.
Katz, 47, a retired trader on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, moved to the village a half-dozen years ago with his wife and three sons. In addition to elective office, he published “The Kansas City A’s & The Wrong Half of the Yankees,” a history of New York’s use of the A’s as a farm team.
Booan, 44, is currently one of two directors at ONC BOCES, seconds-in-command to Superintendent Nick Savin. A fourth-generation Cooperstownian, he was a school counselor in Virginia, where he met his wife, Lisa, before moving home. The couple has two children.
The date is burned in memory: Nov. 15, 2005. And the time: 2:03 a.m.
1-29-10
The date is burned in memory: Nov. 15, 2005.
And the time: 2:03 a.m.
Bill Elsey and his wife Violetta were asleep upstairs in their Bartlett Road home when one of their cats – the one that would survive – awoke them.
“When I sat up in bed, I couldn’t see anything, the smoke was so thick,” the new Town of Springfield supervisor recalled recently on a one of those cold, sunny and clear, very clear, winter days.
The Elseys had only been in town for a few years and didn’t know that many people. Nonetheless, even before the fire was out – the house was destroyed – people began driving up.
“Clothes, food, they brought everything,” said Bill. “People we’d never met before.”
That night changed Elsey, who until then had been something of a wanderer, raised in Chicago, living and working in Florida and California. He’d found a home.
Soon, he was a member of the fire department. A year later, he was chief. In 2007, he was elected to the Springfield Town Board.
On Election Day in November, another chapter opened for the proprietor of Leather Stalking Books: He was elected supervisor, narrowly defeating Tom Armstrong, who had held sway for a quarter-century.
Elsey assumed the town’s helm during a calm in a particularly unusual stormy period in this serene, scenic town.
First, a group of downstate businessmen/motorcycle enthusiasts had sought to build a track near the Warren town line. Then, Chicago-area investors began exploring a sizeable youth baseball park – complete with a mini Wrigley Field and Fenway Park – near the Richfield town line.
Last, and the opposite of least, Madison Square Garden Entertainment proposed a three-day, 75,000 fan annual music festival at the East Springfield end of the 1,200-person town.
“I just felt it was time for us to change in the town,” said Elsey, “and start planning for the future. I just didn’t see that going on.”
The new supervisor was sworn in Jan. 4, and by month’s end found himself in an optimum situation.
Town Board member Dan Rosen and Elsey had been allies, but another like-minded individual, Fred Culbert, was elected in November. Since Elsey’s elevation created a vacancy, he had a say in his successor, who ended up as Bill Freeland, who operates an organic grain and cattle farm on Hoyer Road.
The fifth board member is Richard Rathbun, whose Rathbun Road farm dates back to the town’s founding. On the split Armstrong board, Rathbun was the swing vote with the reputation of someone who could be convinced by the facts.
If, for a freshman supervisor, Elsey is in a pretty good position to get things done, and he’s not wasting any time:
• Highway Superintendent Jeff Miles and Rathbun are exploring what regulations the town might adopt to protect its roads from heavy-truck traffic that would occur if natural-gas drilling happens.
• Town Clerk Jeannette Armstrong, and Planning Board members Rosemary Harrison and Maureen Culbert are identifying which high priorities in the recently completed comprehensive plan to pursue first.
• Elsey is looking into how to speed broad-band Internet access to the town. “If we have it, people are more likely to start their own businesses here.”
• Rosen and Planning Board chair Dave Staley will be recommending how site-plan review must be changed to reflect the comprehensive plan.
• $50,000 in NYSERDA and other funding is being sought to make the Springfield Community Center energy efficient. It still has single-pane windows, but Elsey’s discovered just adding energy-efficient light fixtures and a furnace could save significant money.
• Finally, he’s putting together a committee of citizens to identify “low-impact companies” that might want to relocate here: back offices for an insurance company, perhaps, or an assisted-living facility, much lacking in these parts. “Springfield is pretty easily accessible,” Elsey noted.
The new supervisor asked that this article not dwell on his personal story, but some of it’s too good to let slide.
Both raised in Chicago, Bill and Vi met at the University of Illinois, Chicago campus; both are Chicago Cubs fans. He was a wildlife biologist for a while. He spent 20 years in Mountainview, Calif., running his own medical-transcription business. Then the couple moved to Florida for 3-4 years.
Summers were so hot there, they would travel north to escape the heat, and eventually visited the Baseball Hall of Fame. They liked the area. The couple had been buying and selling books, and figured they could do that anywhere, and so bought a century-old home on Bartlett Road (since the fire, replaced with a ranch.)
The Elseys’ Leather Stalking Books specializes in mysteries. Conan Doyle, Hammett and Chandler are the gold standard, but Bill’s had some luck with lesser lights.
For example, he discovered a first edition of Cormac McCarthy’s first book, “The Orchard Keeper,” and bought it for 63 cents. He’d rather not say what he got for it.
The date is burned in memory: Nov. 15, 2005.
And the time: 2:03 a.m.
Bill Elsey and his wife Violetta were asleep upstairs in their Bartlett Road home when one of their cats – the one that would survive – awoke them.
“When I sat up in bed, I couldn’t see anything, the smoke was so thick,” the new Town of Springfield supervisor recalled recently on a one of those cold, sunny and clear, very clear, winter days.
The Elseys had only been in town for a few years and didn’t know that many people. Nonetheless, even before the fire was out – the house was destroyed – people began driving up.
“Clothes, food, they brought everything,” said Bill. “People we’d never met before.”
That night changed Elsey, who until then had been something of a wanderer, raised in Chicago, living and working in Florida and California. He’d found a home.
Soon, he was a member of the fire department. A year later, he was chief. In 2007, he was elected to the Springfield Town Board.
On Election Day in November, another chapter opened for the proprietor of Leather Stalking Books: He was elected supervisor, narrowly defeating Tom Armstrong, who had held sway for a quarter-century.
Elsey assumed the town’s helm during a calm in a particularly unusual stormy period in this serene, scenic town.
First, a group of downstate businessmen/motorcycle enthusiasts had sought to build a track near the Warren town line. Then, Chicago-area investors began exploring a sizeable youth baseball park – complete with a mini Wrigley Field and Fenway Park – near the Richfield town line.
Last, and the opposite of least, Madison Square Garden Entertainment proposed a three-day, 75,000 fan annual music festival at the East Springfield end of the 1,200-person town.
“I just felt it was time for us to change in the town,” said Elsey, “and start planning for the future. I just didn’t see that going on.”
The new supervisor was sworn in Jan. 4, and by month’s end found himself in an optimum situation.
Town Board member Dan Rosen and Elsey had been allies, but another like-minded individual, Fred Culbert, was elected in November. Since Elsey’s elevation created a vacancy, he had a say in his successor, who ended up as Bill Freeland, who operates an organic grain and cattle farm on Hoyer Road.
The fifth board member is Richard Rathbun, whose Rathbun Road farm dates back to the town’s founding. On the split Armstrong board, Rathbun was the swing vote with the reputation of someone who could be convinced by the facts.
If, for a freshman supervisor, Elsey is in a pretty good position to get things done, and he’s not wasting any time:
• Highway Superintendent Jeff Miles and Rathbun are exploring what regulations the town might adopt to protect its roads from heavy-truck traffic that would occur if natural-gas drilling happens.
• Town Clerk Jeannette Armstrong, and Planning Board members Rosemary Harrison and Maureen Culbert are identifying which high priorities in the recently completed comprehensive plan to pursue first.
• Elsey is looking into how to speed broad-band Internet access to the town. “If we have it, people are more likely to start their own businesses here.”
• Rosen and Planning Board chair Dave Staley will be recommending how site-plan review must be changed to reflect the comprehensive plan.
• $50,000 in NYSERDA and other funding is being sought to make the Springfield Community Center energy efficient. It still has single-pane windows, but Elsey’s discovered just adding energy-efficient light fixtures and a furnace could save significant money.
• Finally, he’s putting together a committee of citizens to identify “low-impact companies” that might want to relocate here: back offices for an insurance company, perhaps, or an assisted-living facility, much lacking in these parts. “Springfield is pretty easily accessible,” Elsey noted.
The new supervisor asked that this article not dwell on his personal story, but some of it’s too good to let slide.
Both raised in Chicago, Bill and Vi met at the University of Illinois, Chicago campus; both are Chicago Cubs fans. He was a wildlife biologist for a while. He spent 20 years in Mountainview, Calif., running his own medical-transcription business. Then the couple moved to Florida for 3-4 years.
Summers were so hot there, they would travel north to escape the heat, and eventually visited the Baseball Hall of Fame. They liked the area. The couple had been buying and selling books, and figured they could do that anywhere, and so bought a century-old home on Bartlett Road (since the fire, replaced with a ranch.)
The Elseys’ Leather Stalking Books specializes in mysteries. Conan Doyle, Hammett and Chandler are the gold standard, but Bill’s had some luck with lesser lights.
For example, he discovered a first edition of Cormac McCarthy’s first book, “The Orchard Keeper,” and bought it for 63 cents. He’d rather not say what he got for it.
EDITORIAL: We’re All In ‘It’ Together, But Tackling ‘It’ Differently
1-29-10
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.
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.
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 success 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 – can make big things happen means Cherry Valley, Springfield Center, Middlefield, Milford and Hartwick can as well.
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 is simply mean state police will cut back their presence?
In other words, does more local money investing in police mean no greater police protection?
Mayor Jacobs would have an opinion or two on that.
As former Oneonta Mayor John S. Nader discovered with Bresee’s, private financing alone couldn’t make the project viable. The public piece – 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 economic development 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.
One community’s 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.
Don’t Play Ball; Play Ball
It’s a shame to hear that, by the time you read this, the Oneonta Tigers will probably have announced the team is moving to Norwich, Conn., leaving Damaschke Field bereft of Minor League Baseball.
When you look at what’s happened in our county’s one city lately, it’s a shame.
Not only the Tigers, but the National Soccer Hall of Fame is within days, it seems, of selling off its facility and moving for good.
Like northern Otsego’s Glimmerglass Opera, the new Foothills Performing Arts Center has been battered by more than $100,000 in cuts at the state and county levels.
Local institutions that survive these trying times – and not-so-trying times alike – often have one thing in common: a firm local foundation – founders, directors and a broad base of public support.
The Tigers are a case in point: The new owners promised to keep the team in Oneonta through the 2010 season. Some promise; out-of-county and -state backers could care less about this locality or any other.
In short, there’s no substitute for self-reliance.
Happily, the anticipated Cooperstown Hawkeyes are being founded by Tom Hickey of Fly Creek.
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.
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.
•
Like many of our downtowns – not Cooperstown’s, thankfully – Stamford’s has been challenged in recent years by the opening of I-88, Scotch Valley Ski Resort’s bankruptcy and 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 success 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 – can make big things happen means Cherry Valley, Springfield Center, Middlefield, Milford and Hartwick can as well.
•
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 is simply mean state police will cut back their presence?
In other words, does more local money investing in police mean no greater police protection?
Mayor Jacobs would have an opinion or two on that.
•
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 – 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 economic development 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.
•
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 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.
Don’t Play Ball; Play Ball
It’s a shame to hear that, by the time you read this, the Oneonta Tigers will probably have announced the team is moving to Norwich, Conn., leaving Damaschke Field bereft of Minor League Baseball.
When you look at what’s happened in our county’s one city lately, it’s a shame.
Not only the Tigers, but the National Soccer Hall of Fame is within days, it seems, of selling off its facility and moving for good.
Like northern Otsego’s Glimmerglass Opera, the new Foothills Performing Arts Center has been battered by more than $100,000 in cuts at the state and county levels.
Local institutions that survive these trying times – and not-so-trying times alike – often have one thing in common: a firm local foundation – founders, directors and a broad base of public support.
The Tigers are a case in point: The new owners promised to keep the team in Oneonta through the 2010 season. Some promise; out-of-county and -state backers could care less about this locality or any other.
In short, there’s no substitute for self-reliance.
Happily, the anticipated Cooperstown Hawkeyes are being founded by Tom Hickey of Fly Creek.
Things To Do In Stamford? Plenty. Read On
1-29-10
If you haven’t been to Stamford, you’re missing some fun.
This village of just 1,200 people offers fine dining, culture and a lot of ways to enjoy the great outdoors.
What’s the main attraction? Here’s a sampling.
A village park on Mount Utsayantha has recently been redone, complete with picnic tables and a composting toilet. The other afternoon, chilly though it was, hang-gliders were heading off into the wild blue yonder.
One of owner/operators Aree and Sally Brays’ specialties: Kaat Mocha.
Their bar top is reason enough to stop by and check the place out; it is made up of 11,230 pennies laid end to end. To make reservations or for information call 652-2265.
In addition to Touhey’s art, the Gallery offers monthly open mic nights the second Saturday of each month, a monthly Yoga Trace Dance, and monthly drum circles. The back of The Gallery is set up to seat 50 people and it has a P.A. system, a grand piano and congas.
Touhey invites people to stop by anytime and offer a spontaneous concert in The Gallery if they feel so inclined. The next open mic night will be at 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 13. For information contact Touhey at 607-652-4030. The gallery is open 4-7 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 12-6 p.m. Saturdays, and 12-5 p.m. on Sundays, or by appointment.
If you haven’t been to Stamford, you’re missing some fun.
This village of just 1,200 people offers fine dining, culture and a lot of ways to enjoy the great outdoors.
What’s the main attraction? Here’s a sampling.
•
People will tell you about endless trails – or at least 30-miles’ worth – to walk, ride, hike and snowmobile. Once known as “Queen of the Catskills,” Stamford has long been a destination for mountain views. A village park on Mount Utsayantha has recently been redone, complete with picnic tables and a composting toilet. The other afternoon, chilly though it was, hang-gliders were heading off into the wild blue yonder.
•
For a warming espresso when you get back to town, try The Kaaterskill House, at 18 River St., which opened in October 2008. And paninis, bagels or cinnamon raisin toast. One of owner/operators Aree and Sally Brays’ specialties: Kaat Mocha.
•
Hungry or thirsty after a day on the trails? Stop in at Fred’s. This restaurant offers an upscale dining experience at affordable prices. Currently owned by Larry Johnston – he owns a restaurant by the same name in New York City – the executive chef Fred Bhend and local boy/sous chef Jesse Temple will soon be buying the venture which opened in December 2007. Both chefs joined the restaurant in its developing stages, helped to build the place and have personally developed the ever changing seasonal menu. They strive to use local produce when available as well as other local ingredients and they make everything from scratch.Their bar top is reason enough to stop by and check the place out; it is made up of 11,230 pennies laid end to end. To make reservations or for information call 652-2265.
•
Stamford offers two art galleries owned by artist Timothy Touhey. The Gallery and The Gallery East feature medium-scale oil paintings, sculptures in marble/bronze, oil pastels, and limited edition prints. In addition to Touhey’s art, the Gallery offers monthly open mic nights the second Saturday of each month, a monthly Yoga Trace Dance, and monthly drum circles. The back of The Gallery is set up to seat 50 people and it has a P.A. system, a grand piano and congas.
Touhey invites people to stop by anytime and offer a spontaneous concert in The Gallery if they feel so inclined. The next open mic night will be at 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 13. For information contact Touhey at 607-652-4030. The gallery is open 4-7 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 12-6 p.m. Saturdays, and 12-5 p.m. on Sundays, or by appointment.
Queen Of Catskills’ Revives
1-29-10
In our nation’s early days, teamsters driving ox-drawn wagons up the old Catskill Turnpike from the Hudson to Unadilla and points west would stop at a tavern in Stamford, which soon was renting rooms and developed into the Delaware House.
In 1825, the Erie Canal dried that up.
Crews of Irish immigrants built the Ulster & Delaware – “The Ugly & Dirty,” local folks used to call it – arriving in Stamford in 1872 and stopping there. The heyday of Stamford’s grand hotels – 20 in all – followed.
In 1900, crews of Italians (a generation later, the latest immigrant group) finished the railroad to Oneonta, the beginning of the end of that
grand period.
After Route 23 was completed from the Hudson River to Norwich, everyone driving from New York City to Oneonta came through Stamford.
In 1985, I-88’s completion from Port Dickinson to Schenectady ended that.
Yes, Stamford’s prosperity has waxed and waned with transportation innovations, so community leaders are charting a future where the destination’s intrinsic qualities will matter most.
“‘The Good Life Starts Here’ is the brand now; but it’s too general,” said Velga Kundzins-Tan, Western Catskills Community Revitalization Council community resource manager. It has offices on Main Street next to the Grand Union.
She and Linda Stratigos, Western Catskills executive director, see Stamford’s outdoors offering – fishing, hiking, hang-gliding, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling – and its arts community – the numerous galleries and musical offerings – as powerful economic-development magnets.
A half-dozen years ago, Kundzins-Tan was involved in Don Dales, repositioning of nearby Hobart as “The Book Village of the Catskills” – the New York Times wrote about it, and the idea took off, so there’s a model of successful branding right in the neighborhood.
Driving into Stamford, you see surface indications that the village is suffering from the same maladies as similar Upstate towns. But scratch the surface, and you soon discover wellsprings of enthusiasm and enterprise that are being marshalled on a range of economic-development fronts.
Bill Hauser, Stamford Central school board president, calls people around here “resilient.” But, judging from plans on the drawing board, it’s more than that. To wit:
• Covidien’s Hobart plant, former Tyco, former Mallinckrodt, former D.M. Graham Laboratories (which Doc Graham started in his garage in the 1960s), is expanding its local workforce to 800 employees, and is building the largest medical vault in the world.
• The venerable Delaware House on Stamford’s Main Street – the Delaware Inn for the past century – is in the midst of a $2 million redo into a mini-convention center, to be completed by fall, under the auspices of the Catskill Watershed Corp.
• Robinson Terrace, a nursing home, will begin construction of a $9.5 million adult home/assisted-living facility in the spring at county Route 18 and Buntine Road, according to Pam Harmon, administrator. Funded 100 percent through a competitive HEAL-NY state grant, the building will include 30 rooms and studio apartments for residents, and 30 rooms for people who needed a higher level of care. It will also create 40-50 “brand new jobs,” Harmon said.
• A half-dozen Main Street buildings will be renovated in Stamford this summer, and another half-dozen in Hobart, paid for with $3.5 million from the state’s Main Street and Restore New York programs, according to Stratigos. The centerpiece in Hobart is the former Delaware Valley Propane building, which will house Liberty Rock Books, expanded to 85,000 volumes.
Book Village founder Dales believes this will push an already successful marketing effort to “critical mass. Our only limiting factor is the number of buildings that are available.”
• A meat-processing plant for organically grown cattle is being proposed by Bill Eckland, owner of Eckland Farm Machinery. The family has been part of the local business scene for generations.
• And the former Scotch Valley Ski Resort, an economic mainstay – and quality-of-life enhancement – before it closed 10 years ago, has been purchased by Oorah, a New Jersey-based philanthropy, with plans to reopen it and the adjoining 48-condo community, Deer Run Village.
The state Power Authority’s Blenheim-Gilboa Pump Storage Plant and the colleges at Oneonta also contribute to a stable employment base; Bassett has a clinic, and two-county ONC BOCES’ headquarters is in the former Rexmere Hotel. Then there’s tourism and the second-home sector – 50 percent of the property around Stamford is owned by part-time residents.
Stratigos, Kundzins-Tan and Dales are just a sampling of a varied and enthusiastic leadership corps that is moving all these efforts forward.
Stamford has an energetic village mayor, Mike Jacobs, the hard-driving defense lawyer. The description is literal, too: He races sports cars at Watkins Glen, Lime Rock and across the nation, and has dabbled in NASCAR as well.
His counterpart in the town, Supervisor Mike Triolo, a retired banker, is economic development director for the Catskill Watershed Corp., which since a 1998 compact between New York City and its reservoir-watershed communities is committed to providing economic-development funds and assistance.
In addition to Western Catskill and Catskill Watershed, two well-watered foundations – Robinson Broadhurst ($40 million in assets) and the O’Connor ($60 million) – are looking out for the community good.
On Oct. 6, for instance, Robinson Broadhurt hosted a luncheon at Fred’s – owner Larry Johnston recently completed its renovation – for 60-some community leaders to launch a strategic-planning effort, facilitated by Andrew Marietta, director of Oneonta-based Council for Community Non-Profits.
The result, Marietta reported: a 30-member steering committee and a list of community priorities to pursue.
Robinson Broadhurst’s chairman Lad McKenzie said the steering committee will meet in April to decide on a first project that will yield concrete results.
There’s a lot going on in Stamford, McKenzie said. “The main reason (for the luncheon),” he said, “was to get organizations together, and try to work together rather than everybody off doing their own thing.”
The best, it seems, may be yet to come.
In our nation’s early days, teamsters driving ox-drawn wagons up the old Catskill Turnpike from the Hudson to Unadilla and points west would stop at a tavern in Stamford, which soon was renting rooms and developed into the Delaware House.
In 1825, the Erie Canal dried that up.
Crews of Irish immigrants built the Ulster & Delaware – “The Ugly & Dirty,” local folks used to call it – arriving in Stamford in 1872 and stopping there. The heyday of Stamford’s grand hotels – 20 in all – followed.
In 1900, crews of Italians (a generation later, the latest immigrant group) finished the railroad to Oneonta, the beginning of the end of that
grand period.
After Route 23 was completed from the Hudson River to Norwich, everyone driving from New York City to Oneonta came through Stamford.
In 1985, I-88’s completion from Port Dickinson to Schenectady ended that.
Yes, Stamford’s prosperity has waxed and waned with transportation innovations, so community leaders are charting a future where the destination’s intrinsic qualities will matter most.
“‘The Good Life Starts Here’ is the brand now; but it’s too general,” said Velga Kundzins-Tan, Western Catskills Community Revitalization Council community resource manager. It has offices on Main Street next to the Grand Union.
She and Linda Stratigos, Western Catskills executive director, see Stamford’s outdoors offering – fishing, hiking, hang-gliding, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling – and its arts community – the numerous galleries and musical offerings – as powerful economic-development magnets.
A half-dozen years ago, Kundzins-Tan was involved in Don Dales, repositioning of nearby Hobart as “The Book Village of the Catskills” – the New York Times wrote about it, and the idea took off, so there’s a model of successful branding right in the neighborhood.
Driving into Stamford, you see surface indications that the village is suffering from the same maladies as similar Upstate towns. But scratch the surface, and you soon discover wellsprings of enthusiasm and enterprise that are being marshalled on a range of economic-development fronts.
Bill Hauser, Stamford Central school board president, calls people around here “resilient.” But, judging from plans on the drawing board, it’s more than that. To wit:
• Covidien’s Hobart plant, former Tyco, former Mallinckrodt, former D.M. Graham Laboratories (which Doc Graham started in his garage in the 1960s), is expanding its local workforce to 800 employees, and is building the largest medical vault in the world.
• The venerable Delaware House on Stamford’s Main Street – the Delaware Inn for the past century – is in the midst of a $2 million redo into a mini-convention center, to be completed by fall, under the auspices of the Catskill Watershed Corp.
• Robinson Terrace, a nursing home, will begin construction of a $9.5 million adult home/assisted-living facility in the spring at county Route 18 and Buntine Road, according to Pam Harmon, administrator. Funded 100 percent through a competitive HEAL-NY state grant, the building will include 30 rooms and studio apartments for residents, and 30 rooms for people who needed a higher level of care. It will also create 40-50 “brand new jobs,” Harmon said.
• A half-dozen Main Street buildings will be renovated in Stamford this summer, and another half-dozen in Hobart, paid for with $3.5 million from the state’s Main Street and Restore New York programs, according to Stratigos. The centerpiece in Hobart is the former Delaware Valley Propane building, which will house Liberty Rock Books, expanded to 85,000 volumes.
Book Village founder Dales believes this will push an already successful marketing effort to “critical mass. Our only limiting factor is the number of buildings that are available.”
• A meat-processing plant for organically grown cattle is being proposed by Bill Eckland, owner of Eckland Farm Machinery. The family has been part of the local business scene for generations.
• And the former Scotch Valley Ski Resort, an economic mainstay – and quality-of-life enhancement – before it closed 10 years ago, has been purchased by Oorah, a New Jersey-based philanthropy, with plans to reopen it and the adjoining 48-condo community, Deer Run Village.
The state Power Authority’s Blenheim-Gilboa Pump Storage Plant and the colleges at Oneonta also contribute to a stable employment base; Bassett has a clinic, and two-county ONC BOCES’ headquarters is in the former Rexmere Hotel. Then there’s tourism and the second-home sector – 50 percent of the property around Stamford is owned by part-time residents.
Stratigos, Kundzins-Tan and Dales are just a sampling of a varied and enthusiastic leadership corps that is moving all these efforts forward.
Stamford has an energetic village mayor, Mike Jacobs, the hard-driving defense lawyer. The description is literal, too: He races sports cars at Watkins Glen, Lime Rock and across the nation, and has dabbled in NASCAR as well.
His counterpart in the town, Supervisor Mike Triolo, a retired banker, is economic development director for the Catskill Watershed Corp., which since a 1998 compact between New York City and its reservoir-watershed communities is committed to providing economic-development funds and assistance.
In addition to Western Catskill and Catskill Watershed, two well-watered foundations – Robinson Broadhurst ($40 million in assets) and the O’Connor ($60 million) – are looking out for the community good.
On Oct. 6, for instance, Robinson Broadhurt hosted a luncheon at Fred’s – owner Larry Johnston recently completed its renovation – for 60-some community leaders to launch a strategic-planning effort, facilitated by Andrew Marietta, director of Oneonta-based Council for Community Non-Profits.
The result, Marietta reported: a 30-member steering committee and a list of community priorities to pursue.
Robinson Broadhurst’s chairman Lad McKenzie said the steering committee will meet in April to decide on a first project that will yield concrete results.
There’s a lot going on in Stamford, McKenzie said. “The main reason (for the luncheon),” he said, “was to get organizations together, and try to work together rather than everybody off doing their own thing.”
The best, it seems, may be yet to come.
Indian Princess Paid Ultimate Sacrifice For Love ... Or Did She?
1-29-10
OK, here’s the story. (Or one of them.)
Princess Utsayantha fell in love with a young white settler and, before long, she was with child.
Her furious father tomahawked the baby. In grief, the mother drowned herself in the lake near the mountain that both bear her name today.
Anne Willis, repository of town history, is skeptical.
The story of an Indian princess falling in love with a young colonial – ala Pocahontas and John Smith – and coming to grief appears again and again, Jungian like, in early American settings.
No doubt it reflects an underlying reality – young men and young women, whatever their cultures, do tend to connect (even today). But beyond that, who knows?
Here are some stories that Anne Willis will repeat with more confidence:
• When the British burned Kingston in 1777, a patroon made land available in the Catskills to the burned-out townspeople, and they became Stamford’s original settlers. For decades, Chisolm-Trail-like, farmers would drive cattle, sheep and even turkeys to the Hudson for shipment by boat to New York City.
• Stamford’s famous sons include Ned Buntline, an adventurer and journalist who’s credited as inventor of the dime novel, churning out such wildly popular best-sellers as “Buffalo Bill Cody: King of the Border Men”
• During the hey-day of Stamford’s 20 grand hotels, Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weismuller, former Olympians and future movie Tarzans, were swimming instructors at pool the grand Rexmere Hotel (now BOCES’ Frank Cyr Educational Center).
• In 1870, blasting for a quarry (or a flash flood, depending on the version) in Gilboa, just over the Delaware-Schoharie line, uncovered a petrified forest. In the 1920s, when construction began on the Gilboa Dam that created the Schoharie Reservoir, more of the stone trees – of the fern-like genus Wattieza – were found.
Describing Miss Willis as a repository is hardly an exaggeration. Her mother, Daisy DeSilva, nee Willis, nee Rogers, worked for decades at the old Stamford Mirror-Recorder.
Anne’s mom was very thorough. In those days before computerized databases, she clipped the weekly newspaper and created scrapbooks, one a year, complete with index. She then condensed the scrapbooks into bound notebooks. She did this for 50 years.
(The newspaper’s publisher, Leo DeSilva, must have been impressed: He married Daisy in 1950.)
The daughter, who inherited the scrapbooks, notebooks and the job of village historian when her mother passed away in 1980, still has them neatly stacked in the office of her Beaver Street home.
Anne Willis was born in Roxbury, but moved when she was 3 years old – her parents separated; her father was a Methodist minister/photographer – into her great-uncle and -aunt’s home with her mother , two brothers and sister Margaret.
The dubious story of Princess Utsayantha brought another to mind: “The Talking Cats of South Gilboa.”
On returning home from “Spook Woods” one evening, a member of the pioneer Mann family reported seeing two male cats dragging along a third cat between them. The cats chased him to the edge of the woods and, as he looked back, one of the cats called out: “Tell Molly Meyers she can come home now, because Jed Hawkins is dead.”
Later, Anne Willis discovered a similar story in a book of Irish folktales.
OK, here’s the story. (Or one of them.)
Princess Utsayantha fell in love with a young white settler and, before long, she was with child.
Her furious father tomahawked the baby. In grief, the mother drowned herself in the lake near the mountain that both bear her name today.
Anne Willis, repository of town history, is skeptical.
The story of an Indian princess falling in love with a young colonial – ala Pocahontas and John Smith – and coming to grief appears again and again, Jungian like, in early American settings.
No doubt it reflects an underlying reality – young men and young women, whatever their cultures, do tend to connect (even today). But beyond that, who knows?
Here are some stories that Anne Willis will repeat with more confidence:
• When the British burned Kingston in 1777, a patroon made land available in the Catskills to the burned-out townspeople, and they became Stamford’s original settlers. For decades, Chisolm-Trail-like, farmers would drive cattle, sheep and even turkeys to the Hudson for shipment by boat to New York City.
• Stamford’s famous sons include Ned Buntline, an adventurer and journalist who’s credited as inventor of the dime novel, churning out such wildly popular best-sellers as “Buffalo Bill Cody: King of the Border Men”
• During the hey-day of Stamford’s 20 grand hotels, Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weismuller, former Olympians and future movie Tarzans, were swimming instructors at pool the grand Rexmere Hotel (now BOCES’ Frank Cyr Educational Center).
• In 1870, blasting for a quarry (or a flash flood, depending on the version) in Gilboa, just over the Delaware-Schoharie line, uncovered a petrified forest. In the 1920s, when construction began on the Gilboa Dam that created the Schoharie Reservoir, more of the stone trees – of the fern-like genus Wattieza – were found.
Describing Miss Willis as a repository is hardly an exaggeration. Her mother, Daisy DeSilva, nee Willis, nee Rogers, worked for decades at the old Stamford Mirror-Recorder.
Anne’s mom was very thorough. In those days before computerized databases, she clipped the weekly newspaper and created scrapbooks, one a year, complete with index. She then condensed the scrapbooks into bound notebooks. She did this for 50 years.
(The newspaper’s publisher, Leo DeSilva, must have been impressed: He married Daisy in 1950.)
The daughter, who inherited the scrapbooks, notebooks and the job of village historian when her mother passed away in 1980, still has them neatly stacked in the office of her Beaver Street home.
Anne Willis was born in Roxbury, but moved when she was 3 years old – her parents separated; her father was a Methodist minister/photographer – into her great-uncle and -aunt’s home with her mother , two brothers and sister Margaret.
The dubious story of Princess Utsayantha brought another to mind: “The Talking Cats of South Gilboa.”
On returning home from “Spook Woods” one evening, a member of the pioneer Mann family reported seeing two male cats dragging along a third cat between them. The cats chased him to the edge of the woods and, as he looked back, one of the cats called out: “Tell Molly Meyers she can come home now, because Jed Hawkins is dead.”
Later, Anne Willis discovered a similar story in a book of Irish folktales.
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