More Local Laws? Instead, Let Us Reason Together

Edition of Thursday-Friday, Oct. 9-10

Attorney Doug Zamelis, it’s become evident around here over recent years, is a guy you want on your side of any legal fight.

That first inkling came when, representing opponents of Community Energy’s 70-75 Jordanville Wind Farm (later Iberdrola’s), he identified violations of the state’s Open Meetings Law to take things back to zero. The project – the towers would have been visible from Otsego Lake – has been dead in the water (rather, on the hillside) since.
Likewise, representing Protect Richfield, he’s tied up the six–turbine Monticello Hills Wind Farm in knots. The other day, representing opponents in Duanesburg, he blocked Clean Energy’s proposed natural-gas compression station on Route 7 there.

That legal lightning is striking from the same source should be no surprise was affirmed last month when Thomson-Reuters placed Zamelis on its 2014 list of Super Lawyers in the category of environmental law.
While raising a family, Zamelis – he was raised in Cooperstown, son of Maria Tripp and stepson of Wendell Tripp – practiced in Manlius. But as the kids got out of college, he’s relocated to Springfield Center, converting Ted Hargrove’s one-time restaurant there to a law office.

So take note: He’s here.

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When Zamelis appeared before Cooperstown village trustees at their September meeting, he was very funny – humor, of course, being the best weapon. He called the proposed tourist-accommodation regulations – he also held forth on the proposed “hospital zone” – “a Rube Goldberg law, a legislative Leaning Tower of Pisa,” ready to topple at the slightest legal nudge.

Zamelis, and attorney Les Sittler, Fly Creek, indicated that, if the law were to pass, a lawsuit would probably be forthcoming.

In response, Mayor Jeff Katz and Deputy Mayor Ellen Tillapaugh Kuch expressed the view that, if action were deferred every time a lawyer raised the prospect of a suit, nothing would ever happen. Happily, the rest of the trustees sidelined the law for further review.

Which brought a couple of recent Village Board trends into focus.

One, in response to perceived problems, a number of complex pieces of legislation, time consuming to prepare and often – critics have pointed out – internally contradictory, have been coming to public hearing at Village Board meetings, only to be sidelined.

Extensive revisions to the sign law, proposed vending and tourist-accommodation laws, and now the “hospital zone,” are multi-page documents prepared by non-lawyers that, at public hearing, have been convincingly picked apart and put on hold for further study.

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Two, are narrow-interest issues are being tackled with village-wide solutions?

Take the tourist-accommodation law. The locus of complaint is that big white house at Susquehanna and Elm, big enough to accommodate a passel of Dreams

Parkers all summer long, who – young parents and all pals – tend to whoop it up into the wee hours.

The proposed solution, however, covers the village’s dozen B&Bs and innumerable Dreams Park rental properties. If any of them is subject to three complaints – three; count ’em – then the permit to operate may be pulled the following year. One sorehead can put a business in doubt. That’s a pretty thin reed on which to build an enterprise.

The same treatment with a broad brush was evident in complaints on one block of River Street and one block of Lake, used by big fan-carrying tour buses to carry Baseball Hall of Fame fans out of town.

The proposed solution would shift tour-bus parking from in front of The Leatherstocking Corp. to in front of the Hall itself. That diverts buses down Fair Street instead of River/Lake. (And would also block the view for all those tourists you see photographing the Hall from in front of the post office.)

Why simply shift the problems from River and Lake to Fair? Isn’t there a solution for everyone, one that doesn’t create winners and losers? Is there a more holistic answer?

(And, yes, the change requires a law, which is going to public hearing at the Village Board’s October meeting on the 27th.)
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Last week, one patron picked up a copy of The Freeman’s Journal, Hometown Oneonta’s sister newspaper, saw the headline, “As Neighbors Rebel, Hospital Zone Stalls,” and remarked: “At least, if someone has a heart attack, the emergency room is four minutes away.”

Many people may know that, yes, Bassett Hospital’s neighbors are upset with the impact of its growth on the neighborhood. It’s been a while, though since that animus bubbled over. And the vast majority of residents who don’t feel the impact may have simply forgotten about the ill will.

For, except for 15 remaining private homes in Bassett’s vicinity, problems – noise, lights, traffic – don’t exist. Benefits – proximity to good care, jobs, the buoying of village businesses and the real-estate market – are a boon to all.

The 18-month development of the complex “hospital zone” failed to answer the central question: What does Bassett need to do to flourish, and what can the village do to assist it, while minimizing negative impacts or, even better, maximizing neighbors’ quality of life?

That’s not academic, since Bassett has moved services out of Cooperstown – dermatology to Hartwick Seminary, for instance – and is studying moving pediatrics to Fox Hospital and eye surgery to Oneonta Specialty Services on outer River Street.

In the end, Bassett needs to do what’s best for Bassett to be a healthy healthcare system, and communities that want to benefit from any future expansion need to understand its needs and respond, not slavishly, but collaboratively.

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To cut to the chase, not every issue is a legal one. Not every solution is a complicated one. Let us reason together. Maybe we can figure things out without any new laws and a judge in the wings.

Given the many hours of regulation development that have proved unfruitful despite the best intentions – and, yes, the intentions are the best – the mayor and village trustees should stop themselves next time they’re attempted to embark on such undertaking. (Sensibly, the county Board of Representatives recently rejected a proposed anti-invasive-species law as, despite its merits, too costly to enforce and too intrusive.)

Maybe, just maybe, there’s a better way.