PADDLE & PULL – 1 – 4 p.m. Enjoy fun socially distanced day to help pull up Water Chestnut stump portion of Goodyear Lake. Personal watercraft allowed, rentals available. Registration required. Meet at Fishing Access Site, St. Hwy. 28, Portlandville. 607-547-4488 or visit occainfo.org/calendar/paddle-and-pull-silver-lake-4/
By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
COOPERSTOWN – Attorney Michael E. Trosset, Cooperstown, who announced Friday afternoon he is seeking to succeed Brian D. Burns of Oneonta as Otsego County judge, has a lot of company.
County Republican Chair Vince Casale said a few minutes ago that, in addition to Trosset, five other lawyers have contacted him about succeeding Burns.
They are, in alphabetical order:
COOPERSTOWN – Bassett Healthcare Network today announced the departure of Dr. Steven Heneghan, the network’s chief clinical officer and a key player in recent successful efforts to limit the coronavirus locally.
Dr. Bill LeCates, Bassett Hospital president, will assume interim responsibilities of chief medical officer for the hospital and the network on an interim basis.
COOPERSTOWN – Despite Tuesday’s announcement of a sixth COVID-19 death in Otsego County, cases continue to decline.
Today, there were only two active cases in the county, down from 11 at the beginning of the week. And only one is hospitalized, according to county Public Health Director Heidi Bond.
Despite testing, confirmed cases remained stable at 109.
DINE ON MAIN – 4:30 p.m. Enjoy a socially distanced evening out. Enjoy diner and support local businesses on Main Street Oneonta.
COOPERSTOWN – James “Jimmy” Bernard Ross, Jr., 60, passed away peacefully in his sleep from heart complications on Aug. 4, 2020, at home in Pasadena, Calif.
Born in Passaic, N.J., on April 26, 1960, and brought home to Monmouth Beach, Jimmy, became one of the top high-fashion children models of the 1960s and 1970s on Madison Avenue under the management of The Barbara Jarrett Agency.
His career included regular ads for Lord & Taylor, JC Penney and Sax Fifth Avenue, as well as many others. He represented such children clothing designers as Florence Eiseman and Merry Mites, as well as Donmore, Pearl Vision and others.
COOPERSTOWN – Attorney Michael E. Trosset, principal at Trosset Group Attorneys in Fly Creek, today announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination for county judge if the current judge, Brian D. Burns, is nominated for state Supreme Court Tuesday.
“I’m putting my name in to replace the irreplaceable Judge Burns,” said Trosset.
If Burns wins the nomination Aug. 11 at the judicial convention in Binghamton, he will remove his name for consideration for county judge, a position he has held since 2000.
ALBANY – All of New York State’s 10 regions – Otsego County’s Mohawk Valley region included – have low enough infection rates to reopen this fall, but how to do so will be up to local schools, as reflected in plans developed locally, Governor Cuomo announced in a conference call this morning.
“Based on our infection rate,” Cuomo said, “New York State is in the best possible situation right now. If anybody can open schools, we can open schools. We do masks, we do social distancing, we’ve kept that infection rate down, and we can bring the same level of intelligence to the school reopening that we brought to the economic reopening.”
The districts must follow state Department of Health guidelines, detailed here.
ALBANY – In a conference call late this morning, Governor Cuomo declared “the good news: Schools can reopen.”
New York State has the “best statistics in the country,” he said, adding at another point, “if New York State can’t open, nobody can open.”
He asked school districts to organized three Zoom meetings with parents between now and Aug. 21 to review their local plans and answer questions, and one for teachers.
ALBANY – State Attorney General Letitia James today filed a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the NRA, the National Rifle Association.
“The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets,” James declared at a press conference in New York City.
“The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law.”
ART EXHIBIT – 4 – 7 p.m. Stop at airy gallery to view exhibit by local artist ‘George Hymas: Spontaneous & Deliberate. ’ Hymas uses visionary, colorful sculpture from castoffs like construction debris, twisted trees, spent bullets, more. The Art Garage, middle bay, 689 Beaver Meadow Rd., Cooperstown. 607-547-5327 or visit www.facebook.com/TheArtGarageCooperstown/
Assemblyman John Salka, R-121st, will host a Virtual Town Hall at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday).
Click here to sign up. You will be emailed the Zoom link so you can participate.
Salka’s 121st District includes Otsego County’s three population centers – Oneonta, Cooperstown and Richfield Springs – and the towns in between, as well as Madison County and part of Oneida.
A retired respiratory therapist and former chairman of the Madison County Board of Supervisors and Brookfield school board president, Salka, a freshman, is being challenged in November by Democrat Dan Buttermann, Oneonta.
By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
COOPERSTOWN – Facing a fiscal crunch, the county Board of Representatives today took the first step toward freeing itself from the state’s 2 percent property-tax cap in preparing its 2021 budget.
At its August meeting, county board Chairman David Bliss, R-Cooperstown/Town of Middlefield, “put the law on the table,” and freshman representative Clark Oliver, D-Oneonta, seconded it.
As County Attorney Ellen Coccoma explained it, a public hearing must now be set before the county board’s next meeting, on Sept. 2, to enable the legislators to act at that point if they wish to.
ESCAPE GAME – 7 – 8 p.m. Join resident Game Master and your friends for fun quest to escape imaginary Witches Hut. Solve puzzles to escape, cure the poison mushrooms you and your party have consumed. Available to 4 County Library System Users only. Presented by Huntington Memorial Library. Visit www.facebook.com/hmloneonta/