TRUSTEES, 4-1, SIGNAL ‘NAY’
TO VILLAGE HOSPITAL ZONE
By JIM KEVLIN • allotsego.com
COOPERSTOWN – It was only a procedural vote, but the 4-1 tally made it clear: The village’s proposed hospital zone, in preparation since April 2013, is going nowhere.
The vote, on Part One of a related SEQR application, was called tonight during the Village Board’s monthly, and turned out to be the only vote related to the Bassett Hospital neighborhood as trustees grappled with regulatory complexities.
Only Trustee Cindy Falk, who chaired the hospital zone committee, voted aye. The nayes were Trustees Lou Allstadt, Jim Dean, Bruce Maxson and Ellen Tillapaugh. Mayor Jeff Katz said nothing.
“I’m going to vote no tonight. I’m going to vote no next month. I’m going to vote no forever,” said Dean.
FOR MORE DETAILS, PHOTOS, SEE THIS WEEK’S FREEMAN’S JOURNAL
The trustees voted after a roomful of residents from the neighborhood around Bassett – primarily Fair, Beaver and Elk streets – spent an hour decrying the negative impact of the hospital’s decades-long expansion on the neighborhood.
Among other matters raised, it was suggested Bassett has extensive plans for a “campus” and “dormitories,” presumably for its new medical school, using properties it has acquired over the years.
Neighbor after neighbor described negative impacts of construction of the five-story Bassett Clinic, replacing the homes and green space around Bassett Hall with parking, and converting the former Carriage & Harness Museum at Elk and Fair into offices with a noisy air-conditioning unit on the roof.
“That’s what happens when an institution gets its claws into a residential neighborhood,” said Linden Summers, Elk Street, who owns the last non-Bassett property in the Atwell-River-Elk-Fair rectangle.
Listening to the back and forth was Bassett’s new president/CEO, Dr. Vance Brown, who said after the session “we do not have a single master plan.” He added, “Obviously, we have to be able to build a plan, in concert with our community, that people are going to be comfortable with.”
In other action tonight, the trustees tabled a tourist-accommodation law after two lawyers in the audience said they would challenge it in court.