Not John Lambert, Somebody LIKE Him

By: Jim Kevlin 12/11/2019 5:00 pm

EDITORIAL

Not John Lambert,

Somebody LIKE Him

Judge Lambert also coached his son John’s team to a state championship earlier this year. (Ian Austin/AllOTSEGO.com)

Why does John Lambert, son of Cooperstown and now a county judge, keep coming to mind in the past few weeks?

Raised in that village, he was a good student and guard on a top CCS Redskins’ basketball team that won two regional titles in the late 1980s. He graduated from Hartwick College in 1992, and earned a J.D. from New England School of Law in 1998.

Then he came home, practiced law, and with wife Katie began raising a family. He created the firm of Lambert & Trossett, and was elected to the county bench in 2009. Anyone who sees him preside has to be impressed by his gravitas, humanity and common sense.

An outstanding citizen, native born, and there are many such sensible people among us. Start making up your own list. Great party game.

So, when it was argued during the county board Dec. 4 debate over creating a county administrator position that no one of quality could be recruited and, if he or she were, could be kept here, it rang hollow.

What about all the graduates honored annually with Clark Scholarships or help from Oneonta’s Dollars for Scholars? What about the 2,000 graduates sent forth annually from SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College?

We’re talking about thousands of young, energetic, outstanding people, smart and educated, who know the county, love the county, and might be attracted back as county administrator, thrilled to make their Otsego County a better place, now and for years to come.

Like whom? Well, not John Lambert, he’s spoken for. But someone LIKE John Lambert. Let’s keep him in mind as the process of recruiting our first county administrator moves forward.

Everyone Wants Fair Deal For Animal Shelter, County

By: Jim Kevlin 12/11/2019 5:00 pm

EDITORIAL

Everyone Wants Fair Deal

For Animal Shelter, County

Drop The Threats, Negotiate An Agreement

Given successes like Zoe’s rescue (she’s seen here with SQSPCA Executive Director Stacie Haynes), the Susquehanna Animal Shelter has high community support, making it an ideal time, not to threaten unilateral action, but to negotiate support from the county board. (AllOTSEGO.com photo)

The issue’s been hanging out there for a while: What role should the Otsego County Board of Representatives play in funding the Susquehanna Animal Shelter?

Schoharie County’s contribution is $75,000 a year to its shelter. Delaware County splits $88,000 among two shelters. Until now, Otsego County has contributed nothing.

The county has been allocating $5,000 a year. It is not a donation, but a fee for services, which seems like the better way to go.

At its Nov. 26 public hearing on its 2020 county budget, county representatives were advised the Susquehanna SPCA, using cost-accounting data developed by a volunteer, Cooperstown’s Richard Sternberg, plans to “unilaterally” begin charging what it has determined its true costs are.

In a situation with a lot of moving parts, doing anything “unilaterally” is not the best way forward.

For one thing, everyone seems to agree abused animals have to be taken care of, and that county government should pay for costs incurred.

County Sheriff Richard J. Devlin Jr., whose department out of necessity, drops animals seized in cruelty cases at the Hartwick Seminary shelter, said “the welfare of animals is both our priorities.”

County Board Chairman Dave Bliss, R-Cooperstown/Town of Middlefield, also buys into the general concept. “The board wants to take care of its responsibilities,” he said in last week’s newspaper.

So the issue isn’t that the county pay for costs incurred. It’s simply how much (and, perhaps, to whom)?

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The shelter’s annual operating budget is over $700,000. Last year, with the 103 starving animals seized on that Garrattsville farm and 56 Lhasa Apsos surrendered in Milford, Sternberg estimated the county received some $70,000 worth of services.

(Remember, that’s the year-to-year “operating budget,” separate from the $3 million that’s been raised to build a 21st-century animal shelter on Route 28 at Index. Two different pots of money.)

Averaged out with Sternberg’s guidance, SQSPCA Executive Director Stacie Haynes estimated the county’s annual cost at about $40,000 a year, some 5 percent of its total expenses. That includes caring for dogs dropped off by the sheriff’s department, or when a shelter team responds to a call through the county’s 911 system.

When County Treasurer Allen Ruffles returns in January from his National Guard deployment in Djibouti, he should review those figures and come to a common understanding about the value of the services provided.

Under the state Ag & Markets Law, law enforcement – locally, mostly the sheriff’s department – is required to respond to animal-abuse complaints. When deputies remove an animal, they have to take it someplace.

The Susquehanna Animal Shelter has been the preferred option, but it doesn’t have to be.

As Bliss explains it, if the county wanted to contract for services, it would be required to go out to bid, and other shelters – Oneonta’s Superheroes in Ripped Jeans, for instance – could bid, as could individual veterinary practices. Or the county could set up its own pound.

Clearly, acting “unilaterally” may have unintended consequences all around.

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The Susquehanna Animal Shelter has a lot going for it.

Under Haynes, it’s been a first-rate operation, evident most recently in bringing the heart-rending case of Zoe, the
German shepherd discovered chained last month in the Town of Exeter with a chewed-off leg and large tumor in her shoulder. Zoe was seized, treated and is now in a new home in the Butternuts Valley.

Successes like this have raised the shelter’s profile, and pet owners are aware of and likely to use its services.

People – that includes members of the county board – want to back a winner, to support excellence, so Susquehanna SPCA, in its current incarnation, is in a position of strength.

Still, it’s determine to do what it believes in. As Haynes put it in last week’s paper, “We have a moral obligation to do what we do. We’re never going to stop doing what we’re doing.”

Admirable, but it weakens the shelter’s bargaining position. It takes the county board off the hook: It can be assured, regardless, our Zoes will be taken care of regardless.

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So it only makes sense to cool off the rhetoric. Get the numbers. In an $11 million local tax levy in a $120 million budget, $40,000 is smidgeon. It’s there somewhere. Still, the county board shouldn’t just give away money because somebody asks for it. Fee for service is the way to go.

Demanding will get us nowhere. Let level-headed representatives on both sides sit down, figure out what’s fair and mutually agreeable.

On County Manager, Now Hard Work Begins

By: Libby Cudmore 12/04/2019 5:00 pm

EDITORIAL

On County Manager,

Now Hard Work Begins

By the time you read this, it’s very likely Otsego County will have created a job of county administrator, joining all but a handful of counties around New York State.

Heading into the Wednesday, Dec. 4, monthly meeting of the county Board of Representatives, the momentum to professionalize government was clear.

Six of the seven Democrats were firmly in favor, plus two Republican leaders – chairman David Bliss and Schenevus’ Peter Oberacker.

Add in Meg Kennedy, the Hartwick Conservative who chaired the committee that firmed up the idea, and it’s a go and then some.

The final tally may include that seventh Democrat,
and perhaps two of the other four Republicans. Only Republicans Ed Frazier and Kathy Clark have been outspokenly against the idea that it takes a pro to administer a $120 million operation.
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That said, the nays – Frazier, in particular – have raised cautionary issues in two Letters to the Editor published on www.AllOTSEGO.com.

One, it’s a big job. Two, a manageable expense – salary and benefits are expected to cost $150,000 a year – can get out of control.

Greene County, Frazier reported, “realizing one person couldn’t fulfill all the requirements of the position, … hired a deputy. There, annual spending for the office is now in excess of $350K.”

He concludes, “We have a lot of other line items in the budget that we could spend $350K on.” (Among them, perhaps $40,00-70,000 in costs being absorbed by the Susquehanna SPCA; but that’s for another day.)

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Still, the consensus grew behind hiring a county manager as county reps recognized there’s too much to do, and much of it is too complicated for 14 non-expert citizens to accomplish at one monthly meeting and a half-dozen committee meetings in between.

It’s OK if you don’t want – or need – to do anything. But the Energy Task Force, a crisis in rural ambulance service, a complex (and, it’s hoped, cost-effective) renovation of county buildings, a possible new multi-entity highway garage, a stubborn (but, thankfully, not too big) homeless problem, changing tech needs, not to mention day-to-day administration.

It’s a lot; that’s hardly all.

To avoid mushrooming costs – that’s the county board’s job going forward: to prevent empire-building.
Accepting the county manager can’t do EVERYTHING is essential to his/her success. That means recognizing all things aren’t equal and setting priorities.

Further, there’s a lot of staff, brainpower and energy in place now, in 24 department heads and their deputies, in the Planning Department in particular, in the clerk of the board’s office, etc., that can be repurposed or “tasked” as necessary.

Not easy, but possible. It’s impossible now.

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Attention will now shift to finding the right guy/gal.

Happily, at chairman Bliss’ insistence, the job description is wide enough to ensure a deep field of candidates.

If an MPA, fine. But brains, experience, healthy ambition, diplomacy (in dealing up to 14 bosses and down to department heads) are essential qualities.

If the vote goes as anticipated here, it’s only the beginning.

Kennedy, Bliss, Committee Deserve Praise

By: Libby Cudmore 12/04/2019 5:00 pm

EDITORIAL

Kennedy, Bliss,

Committee Deserve Praise

Who gets the praise for professionalizing Otsego County government?

Foremost, probably county Rep. Meg Kennedy, C-Hartwick.

The idea caught fire with her, evident in her close questioning of SUNY New Paltz Vice President Gerry Benjamin, keynoter at “County Manager v. County Executive,” a forum on the idea Dec. 14, 2017, at Springbrook’s new community center.

In the months that followed, she became the first local county representative ever recruited to New York
State Association of Counties’ board, and tapped her new connections – Executive Director Steve Acquario and his network – in two years of study by her Intergovernmental Affairs Committee that led up to this week’s vote.

She did the heavy-lifting, but the concept would have gone nowhere without the consensus-building chairman, David Bliss, R-Cooperstown/Town of Middlefield, who took the helm in January 2018, just as Kennedy’s effort began. Bliss has smoothed the way for a lot of progress, with this effort potentially foremost among them.

Kennedy’s IGA committee members: from the majority Republicans, Schenevus’ Peter Oberacker;
from the Democrats, Fly Creek’s Andrew Marietta, Gilbertsville’s Michele Farwell and Oneonta’s Liz Shannon. They attended a second monthly meeting 20 months in a row, absorbing the expertise Kennedy brought before them. They were sold.

Some credit should go Ed Frazier, R-Unadilla, an Administration Committee member who little doubt votes nay. He engaged in the issue, and – as the grain of sand in the oyster – his challenges no doubt made the resulting concept stronger.

Of course, none of this happened overnight. Kay Stuligross, now retired outside Philadelphia, marshalled a League of Women Voters’ push for a county manager in the 1990s. That motivated her to run for the county board, where she served admirably for more than a decade.

The great Dave Brenner, former county board chairman, then Oneonta mayor, is also a scholar, and he prepared an exhaustive study in 2008 on the county board’s behalf that endorsed the county manager idea.

At the time, the board was particularly divided – Otego Rep. Ron Feldstein had cobble together a Democrat-dominated majority by enticing Worcester Republican Don Lindberg to accept the chairmanship.

Everyone was furious at everyone else, and Brenner sagely advised bringing a county manager into that turmoil would guarantee failure. Wait for a better day, he said, and so we have.

This has focused on praise, but some will look to blame the very same innovators. Praise – and hope – are more apt today. But the county representatives are embarked on a meaningful and – word of the year – potentially fraught experiment.

Surefootedly, Bliss, Kennedy et al can make it work, but success isn’t inevitable. Prudence, limits, economy, restraint, diplomacy are qualities needed in the months ahead.

Conductor Search: What A Treat, Opportunity

By: Libby Cudmore 11/27/2019 5:00 pm

EDITORIAL

Conductor Search:

What A Treat, Opportunity

Now, THAT’S marketing – in the nicest possible light.

On learning its venerable founding conductor, Chuck Schneider, was retiring after 46 years, The Catskill Symphony Orchestra Governing Board could have simply advertised for a new one, sorted the resumes, interviewed top prospects and made a decision.

Instead of handling matters in-house, the search committee threw open the decision-making to the public; not exclusively, of course, but it encouraged attendees at three concerts this fall – and the musicians, too – to fill out questionnaires assessing each candidates’ strengths.

And what a lesson for veteran concertgoers and newcomers alike, to see three conductors from different parts of the globe – Silas Huff, who rose through conducting the 44th U.S. Army Band, Carolyn Watson from Australia (now in Kansas), and Maciej Zoltowski from Poland – perform widely varying programs in markedly different styles.

“The biggest surprise is: we got 73 applicants – nationally and internationally,” said Laurie Zimniewicz, search committee chair. “We were like, wow.”

So, as you can imagine, all three have terrific credentials. Google them.

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The conductors designed their own programs and invited in soloists, and each evening was at times gripping, even for the not-so-aficionados/experts among we audience members.

Huff began with Strauss, which swept audience members onto their feet, and ended with Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite,” another crowd pleaser. He was the most engaging in his remarks from the podium.
Watson was precise, intense, all energy.

Her selections were the most edgy, beginning with Higdon’s percussion-heavy “Fanfare Ritmico.” But if you were surprised at the outset, you were captured by the end.

Zoltowski was Tchaikovsky heavy – two of the three pieces. But what Tchaikovsky! The audience was rapt as pianist Alex McDonald, brought in from Texas, accompanied the CSO on Piano Concerto #1 – an emotional highpoint of the season, for sure.

To see three different conductors at their trade – one each in September, October and November – was a
rare opportunity around here, and mind-expanding.

It was satisfying to learn how the community responded: Attendance grew over the three concerts; subscriptions grew. Doing well by doing good. Nice.

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The Search Committee won’t make the final decision, but will present an assessment Dec.10 to the CSO Governing Board, including graphs depicting how the audience and the CSO musicians rated the three.

The plan is to give the most weight to the musicians’ inputs. “Without a happy orchestra, we won’t have an orchestra,” she said, and she has a point.

Still, there’s more to that.

Will a conductor’s taste in music help fill the house? Will he or she be able to reach out to all constituencies – the musicians, yes, but also audiences, the board and, if the institution is to grow and prosper, the community?

Will the conductor be able to think like an executive, to strategize, to identify opportunities and chart the future? And, in doing so, to productively collaborate with CSO President Diane Williams, the Governing Board and Executive Director Thomas Wolfe.

In short, the Governing Board may be guided by others’ perspectives, but in the end, it must make its own decision.

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In part, that decision will be with an eye to the future: How to attract a younger audience. As a side benefit, conductor candidates have provided a rich list of ideas on how to do this, Zimniewicz said.

The Catskill Symphony Orchestra, based in Oneonta, was founded in 1973. That’s almost half a century ago. It can be taken for granted. But it shouldn’t be.

At a time when major cities are losing their orchestras, ours continues to thrive. If you haven’t partaken, this is a good time to put a toe in the water.

The conductor should be chosen around the first of the year and will direct the CSO’s annual Cabaret Concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 14, in SUNY Oneonta’s Dewar Arena. You’ll be glad you did.

Citizens, Cooperstown Needs You To Run For Village Board

By: Jim Kevlin 11/20/2019 5:00 pm

EDITORIAL

Citizens, Cooperstown

Needs You To Run For

Village Trustee Position

Bernie Viek, supported by Lake Street neighbors, raises concerns about a blinking light at the Sept. 23 Cooperstown trustees meeting. (AllOTSEGO.com photo)

Bernie Viek’s testimony nailed it.

In the past few months, the Cooperstown Village Board’s default response to any traffic issue has been, put up a blinking light. After a driver rolled his car through the boat ramp at the end of Fair Street April 11 and drowned, suddenly a blinking red light appeared at Fair and Lake streets.

At the Sept. 23 trustees’ meeting, Viek, attending with a crowd of perturbed neighbors, reported the light was blinking, blinking, blinking all night long on his bedroom wall.

Plus, because of the nature of the drowning – the first ever at the site – a blinking light wouldn’t have saved a life.
No doubt neighbors of other blinking lights – at Susquehanna and Beaver, at Delaware and Walnut, at Glen Avenue, Lake Street and the village’s south end – have similar complaints.

Why would the village trustees start putting up these signs without any notice or public discussion?

Because they can.

After almost a decade of uncontested village elections, can you blame the trustees for concluding they can do pretty much what they want?

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Bernie Viek’s dilemma – responding to his concern, the blinking light was removed – is just one of many indications the Village Board no longer believes it needs to build a consensus before it acts.

Outpourings of public angst in the past year underscore this.

The blinkers, for sure. Plans for an apartment house backing up to Pine Boulevard, one of the village’s finest streets. A provision in the proposed zoning code, removed after public outcry, to allow conversion of single-family homes into dormitories. The proposed Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskins Robbins store, now withdrawn, at a problematic site overlooked in the zoning redo.

The unanimous vote to fly the Pride Flag next June on the community flagpole has remained under the radar – speaking out is too easily misunderstood in today’s climate. But the Vets’ Club unwillingness to be used as a foil – it rejected Trustee Richard Sternberg’s proposal to fly the POW/MIA flag on the flagpole this month – suggests an unease.

Also, by rejecting Village Attorney Martin Tillapaugh’s recommendation to go easy – the trustees can approve any flag they want, he said, the problem comes when the KKK submits an application – the village trustees put all taxpayers in jeopardy.

Why? Because they could. Since there hasn’t been a check at the ballot box for local Democratic Party dominance for almost a decade now, they can get away with it.

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Maybe that’s coming to an end.

The county Republican chairman, Vince Casale, said he is already lining up a slate for the mid-March village elections. This is good; the village Republican Party collapsed in 2012 after GOP Mayor Joe Booan opened discussions to merge village police into the county Sheriff’s Department.

Now, that was accountability.

Because of national divisiveness manifest locally, many Democrats might be unwilling to vote Republican. But there are other ways to provide choice: Individual citizens need only collect 50 signatures (shoot for 100; you’ll be challenged) to get on the ballot. Call Village Administrator Teri Barown, who oversees village elections,
at 547-2411 for instructions.

The Democratic caucus at the end of January routinely rubber-stamps pre-selected candidates, but that doesn’t have to be: Any registered party member can have a couple friends propose and second his or her nomination, and force a contest.

Further, former trustee Lou Allstadt sought both Republican and Democratic endorsements at the party caucuses, signaling both his independence, and an interest in serving all of us, R, D or small “I”.

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Contested elections are not a radical idea. They’re a good thing, the basis of the world’s greatest Democracy. Jousting between parties – Judge Cooper’s Federalists and Jedediah Peck’s Jeffersonians – dates back to the very founding of the village in 1807.

Plus, Democrats who have controlled the Village Board since 2020 have blind spots that call out for attention, foremost the decline of the business district. Mid-afternoons from January through March, downtown is a ghost town. It wasn’t that way even a half-decade ago, much less a decade ago.

While the City of Oneonta has been a successful partner in the redevelopment of Bresee’s Department Store and Stevens’ Hardware into first-rate apartments, and now the recruitment of Kearney & Son Development to construct the exciting Lofts on Dietz project, the Village Board here has actively resisted such initiatives.

The Village Board needs, one, to join the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce at the highest membership level, and, two, collaborate with merchants and chamber members to ensure vigorous and constant downtown promotion programs.

Further, instead of breaking up stately homes into apartments and more modest homes into dorms – a formula for neighborhood deterioration – the Village Board needs to partner with Bassett Hospital and developers to build affordable housing hospital employees say they want.

That could be outside the village – word is circulating about a Phoenix Mills Road project, next to Centers – or at convenient but appropriate sites in or around downtown. (For heavens’ sake, protect and enhance the neighborhoods!)

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This is no criticism of Mayor Ellen Tillapaugh Kuch, who is an exceptional representative for the village. She is focused, as she should be – there’s a lot out there – on finishing up the ambitious public works projects now underway, including the 100th anniversary renovations of historic Doubleday Field. In the end, though, she’s the leader.

Trustee Joe Membrino, who with wife Martha moved here from Washington D.C. in 2013 on his retirement as a BIA attorney, is a trustee in the Lou Allstadt mold – experienced in high councils, widely knowledgeable, level-headed, and no push-over. He was appointed to fill out Tillapaugh’s trustee term when she was elected mayor.

The third Village Board member up for reelection, Macguire Benton, is a work in progress. His declaration during the Pride Flag debate that, if people disagree with him, they should run for Village Board, dramatized the arrogance that requires remedy at the ballot box.

Nominated by the Democrats when Allstadt retired, he ran unopposed last March and gained a seat with only 114 votes, the bottom of the ticket.

This week, he took to Facebook to encourage people not to contribute to the Salvation Army Kettle Drive, sure to alienate other constituents unnecessarily.

As a freshman, he should be trying to figure out who his constituents are and what they want – and don’t want – from Village Hall. A strong challenge would be a great education for him, as well as a tonic for the Village Board in general.

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Friends, all that’s required is for citizens to be citizens. If you care about preserving Cooperstown, playing to its strengths and increasing its liveability, run. Not angrily, not to settle scores or push parochial issues, but to participate in guiding “America’s Most Perfect Village” into the future.

Remember, it’s “most perfect,” not perfect. There’s work to be done.

From All, Best Wishes For A Speedy Recovery

By: Jim Kevlin 11/13/2019 5:00 pm

EDITORIAL

From All, Best Wishes

For A Speedy Recovery

$10 MILLION MAN: State Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, is flanked by, from left, MVREDC chairman Robert Geer, Empire State Development Corp. President Howard Zemsky, Oneonta Mayor Gary Herzig and Assemblyman Bill Magee, D-Nelson, when the City of Oneonta was named the first DRI community on July 20, 2016. (Ian Austin/AllOTSEGO.com)

Editor’s Note: This editorial is reprinted from this week’s editions of Hometown Oneonta & The Freeman’s Journal, on newsstands now.

The news that state Sen. Jim Seward’s cancer is back – his office issued a press release Wednesday, Nov. 6 – brings two immediate reactions.

One, fingers crossed. Advances in cancer-fighting research can mean five years, 10 years – and more – of active living. Everyone’s got a story of a happy outcome.

Two, reflections immediately come to mind on the ongoing Seward Era of Otsego County politics. It’s been a charmed one, and to reflect on it underscores how his recovery will be good news for all of us.

Just think about this decade, the State Sen. Jim Seward Decade, if you will.

You Can Read County Manager Job Description

By: Libby Cudmore 11/06/2019 5:00 pm

WHO MIGHT BE COUNTY MANAGER?

You Can Read County

Manager Job Description

Editor’s Note: Here are the qualifications for a county manager the Otsego County board was scheduled to consider Wednesday, Nov. 6.

►Section 3. Appointment and Term of Office

The County Administrator shall be appointed by the Board of Representatives and shall serve a term of three years at the pleasure of the Board of Representatives.
In the event of a vacancy in office, the County Board of Representatives shall appoint a person to fill the
position for the remainder of the unexpired term.

The County Administrator shall be reviewed annually by the Board of Representatives, or a committee
designated by them.
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►Section 4. Qualifications

At the time of appointment the County Administrator shall possess the following qualifications:
1. Graduation from a regionally accredited or New York State registered college or university with a Master’s Degree in Business or Public Administration or a related field and six (6) years of professional experience in the field of public administration; OR

2. Graduation from a regionally accredited or New York State registered college or university with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business or Public Administration or a related field and eight (8) years of professional experience in the field of public or business administration.

3. The appointee need not be a resident of Otsego County at the time of appointment but shall become
so within sixty days of the date of appointment and remain so during his or her term of office.
Failure to become a resident or to remain a resident shall be cause for dismissal by the Otsego County Board of Representatives.

4. The Board of Representatives shall appoint on the basis of these qualifications and on the basis of additional qualifications that the Board of Representatives may establish from time to time.

Reps Ready To Balance Credentials, Experience

By: Libby Cudmore 11/06/2019 5:00 pm

EDITORIAL

Reps Ready To Balance

Credentials, Experience

As the City of Oneonta has demonstrated, moving to a city manager – or county manager, the issue of the day – can be “fraught.”

(That’s the word of the day – or year – all of a sudden, every reporter is finding every situation “fraught,” filled with possibilities for undesirable outcomes. It’s the “Where’s the Beef?” of 2019.)

Wednesday, Nov. 6, the Otsego County Board of Representatives, after almost two years of study, was scheduled to vote on a job description and resolution to create the job. The resolution would set a public hearing for the next meeting, Dec. 4, and at that point the county reps could vote.

Before then, county Rep. Meg Kennedy, C-Mount Vision, who has championed the effort as chair of both key committees, Intergovernmental Affairs and Administration, said two public information meetings will brief citizens on the innovation and allow discussion and input.

The county board chair, David Bliss, R-Cooperstown/Town of Middlefield, supports creating the county-manager job, but said he wants to make sure the job description is non-specific enough to give the county reps a big enough talent pool and flexibility in picking the right person.

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As it happens, two local examples exist that allow lessons to be drawn.

In Oneonta, the city Charter Revision Commission that met in 2009-10 was determined to prevent the hiring of a “good ol’ boy” from the local power structure for the job.

So the job description specifically requires an MPA – a master’s in public administration – which narrowed the talent pool, and may have contributed to the failure of the first two city managers, before the position was stabilized under George Korthauer, a veteran administrator from Petoskey, Mich., who’s been able to pretty much avoid controversy in his two years on the job.

It’s been argued the MPA provision prevented executives like Joe Forgiano, then-retiring executive vice president at MeadWestvaco, Sidney, from being considered. (It’s unclear if he was ever asked if he was interested.)

But you can think of other eminent Oneontans, people like retired SUNY Oneonta president Alan Donovan or former mayor John Nader, who, lacking an MPA, might have stepped in nonetheless and performed superbly.

Then there’s Village of Cooperstown, where Teri Barown was seamlessly promoted from village clerk, and has been effectively operating since with nary a ripple.

The village administrator position had been created in the 1990s, but never filled. And in September 2016, recognizing more day-to-day oversight was required with downtown projects multiplying, Mayor Jeff Katz and the trustees simply promoted her.

It’s worked out great, (plus the village saved some money). Barown knew the trustees, knew what they wanted and what they would resist. She is knowledgeable, diplomatic, with a fine-tuned sense of customer service.

No problemo – not a one.

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With such lessons to draw on, Chairman Bliss brings a commonsense outlook to the county manager job description.

Crafted with the help of NYSAC, the state Association of Counties, it’s not surprising the MPA provision is included, and others as well. That’s the sea NYSAC swims in.

But a range of work experience combined with a range of credentials appears to tilt toward the Cooperstown model rather than the Oneonta one.

That’s good, because too much narrow-gauged professionalism can also, little by little, squeeze out democracy.

School superintendents are a case in point: For instance, every school board resolution begins with “on the recommendation of the superintendent of schools,” as if boards of education can do nothing that their hired manager doesn’t suggest or endorse.

Given the requirement that superintendents implement ever more precise and far-ranging law and regulation, even they lack much leeway in determining what local schools teach and how.

And remember, 30 years ago, when voters could reject school budgets and spending would
actually be cut. Today, schools are required to provide so much of what goes on in schools, local boards of education can only cut things like the basketball team, which nobody wants.

You don’t need to go to Washington D.C. to find Donald Trump’s “deep state.” It’s alive and well at 89 Washington St., Albany, the state Department of Education, and in every school district in the state.

Also to watch for: Oneonta’s city manager system – to give him credit, Korthauer’s professional, low-key approach has settled things down – seems to have sapped Common Council’s motivation; committee meetings are routinely cancelled due to lack of a quorum, and it’s been months since any Council member has proposed a notable initiative. (Maybe the new cadre elected Tuesday, Nov. 5, will change that.)

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The advantage of the existing county board is that it’s close to the people, and responsive … although not always as efficient as it might be.

It’s that inefficiency – Vice Chairman Gary Koutnik, D-Oneonta, mentioned expensive change orders on county jail renovations that keep surprising the county reps. A county manager, presumably, would put a better chain of command in place.

Kennedy, who is learning about statewide networking after recently joining NYSAC’s board, hopes the county manager will be able to seek out best practices and novel initiatives statewide to help fix local problems – with our challenged rural emergency squads, for instance.

Following the Teri Barown model, is there someone already at the county who could step up to the job, MPA or not? Karen Sullivan, the planning director who ends up in charge of much of county innovation, would certainly be a contender (although she says she doesn’t want what, at least at the beginning, will be a daunting job.)

Acting Treasurer Alan Crisman, IT Director (and Milford village mayor) Brian Pokorny, Personnel Director Penny Gentile, even current Clerk of the Board Carol McGovern come to mind as promising prospects after a sufficiently rigorous interview process. Working for an MPA while on the job might be a sensible requirement.

•

Bliss and county Rep. Ed Frazier, R-Unadilla, a former vice chair, are also concerned about mission creep. A county manager, budgeted at $150,000 a year, might conclude he or she needs a deputy, then secretarial help, and before you know it we’re up to $250,000.

Bliss is determined stay on top of that. After all, the county already has $116 million worth of brain- and firepower. That should be enough.

At base, the world’s a complicated place – and that goes for local government as anywhere else. The right amount of expertise and executive ambition could serve the county well.

It’s not a slam dunk, no guarantees; but Coach Bliss understands the vagaries involved in playing the game. And to listen to him, we can hope for, not a NYSAC cookie-cutter solution, but one that can pursue local opportunities while reducing local challenges.

The point, in the end, is a happier, more efficient Otsego County.

Early Voting Begins In County, And With It, New Opportunities

By: Jim Kevlin 10/30/2019 5:00 pm

EDITORIAL

Early Voting Begins

In County, And With

It, New Opportunities

“Anything that allows more people to exercise the right to vote is important,” said Mike Henrici, the county’s Democratic elections commissioner after the first weekend of early voting in Otsego County.

Maybe.

Early voting has been around for 30 years – Texas was first – and today 38 states open the polls in advance of Election Day, which this year is Nov. 5. New York was the 38^th state and, as elsewhere in the state, polls opened at 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26, at the county’s Meadows Office Complex in the Town of Middlefield.

Day One, 50 people voted – the first historic ballot was cast by Kathy Chase, Cooperstown. Day Two, 42, and by noon Monday, Day Three, 34. At that rate, perhaps 400-500 ballots will be cast by Sunday, Nov. 3. There will then be a two-day hiatus, and polls will be open 6 a.m.-9 p.m. Election Day.

Chase, who plans to be in Colorado visiting her son on Nov. 5, and thus wouldn’t have been able to vote, said, “If it increases voter turnout, then it’s a good thing.”

Yes, but that seems not to have happened nationwide, although early voting has risen from 7 percent of voters in the early 1990s to 17.3 percent, a U.S. Election Assistance Commission statistic reported in a recent column by Hans A. von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commission member in the Washington Times. That doesn’t include absentee ballots.

However, studies out of American University and the University of Wisconsin concluded states with early voting found turnout dropped 3-4 percent, he recounted.

One theory is that, with one Election Day, campaigns mount an intensive effort to get out the vote; having to do so over two weeks – or as much as 45 days in some states – saps the undertaking.

But what about in Otsego County, when you’re talking about very small numbers, particularly this year, when only county and town offices, and three state Supreme Court slots, are on the ballot.

Take the Town of Richfield, where the motivated Protect Richfield neighbors went to court, lost, then took control of the Comprehensive Plan revision to achieve their goal: banning wind turbines from the jurisdiction.

If Protect Richfield organized to drive a dozen house-bound supporters to the polls every day of 10-day early voting, the 120 votes might very likely swing the election in their favor.

Same in the county board’s District 3 (Laurens-Otego), where Democratic organizers put on a push in the June 25 primary to garner 30 write-in votes to win the Independent line for their candidate, Caitlin Ogden. Despite Republican Rick Brockway having his name printed on the Independent ballot line, he garnered only four votes.

When we’re talking that few numbers, it doesn’t take much to tilt the game board.

Don’t kid yourself that couldn’t be happening. The other day, the county Democratic Committee sent out a tightly packed schedule of envelope stuffing and phone banking. The OCDC is energized.

Whether Republicans are caught flat-footed remains to be seen.

Last year, Democrat Antonio Delgado raised $9 million to wrest the 19^th District congressional seat from incumbent Republican John Faso, who raised a mere $4 million, according to OpenSecrets.org, the Center for Responsive Politics’ home page.

With that kind of money at his disposal, you can see what kind of hay Delgado’s 2019 campaign can in the 10-day early-voting period, when Delgado will be running for reelection.

Ironically, given Democratic support of taking big money out of politics, early voting “increases the already skyrocketing cost of political campaigns,” wrote Spakovsky, who now is at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“When so many citizens vote early, any candidate who limits spending on voter mobilization to the last few days before Election Day (instead of engaging in expensive turnout efforts during the entire early voting period) will be at a serious disadvantage,” the column said.

There are other issues.

Spakovsky pointed out that in the 2016 Presidential campaign, early voting began in three states even before Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had completed their debates.

After early votes are cast, candidates can die. Scandals can erupt.

In 2016, Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican and presidential candidate, dropped out a week before the Arizona primary and still received 70,000 votes, many of them early ones.

A CNN analyst pointed out John Kasich came in fourth, behind Rubio by only 6,000 votes. The Ohio governor had been beaten by “Rubio’s ghost.”

If Kasich had continued as a viable alternative to Donald Trump, who knows what our nation’s political landscape would have been today.

In conclusion, Spakovsky mourns the “damage to civic cohesiveness” gained by everyone voting on a single day.

In Cooperstown, for instance, gathering at the Rotary Club’s pancake breakfast at the vets’ club after casting your ballot is as much a part of Election Day as standing in line at St. Mary’s Parish Hall.

Candidates are there. Republicans and Democrats shake hands. There’s a feeling of civic cohesion, if not unity on all the issues.

“Given the costs, particularly its tendency to lower turnout, early voting is a ‘reform’ that states should consider undoing,” said the former FEC commissioner.

An unalloyed good? It seems not.

Revisit Richfield Comp Plan: Elect Palevsky, Eckler, Bello

By: Jim Kevlin 10/23/2019 5:00 pm

ENDORSEMENT EDITORIAL

Revisit Richfield Comp Plan:

Elect Palevsky, Eckler, Bello

Nick Palevsky for Richfield town supervisor

In the lead-up to the Richfield Town Board adopting a new Comprehensive Plan & Zoning Code, people said they want to see the town come together.

People observed that “nothing’s happened” in the Richfield Springs area in the past 20 years (or longer).

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People mourned the decline in enrollment of the Richfield Springs Central School, which graduated 29 seniors on June 29.

These emotions are easily understood.

But to conclude, as some did, that the town’s new comp plan and code, hatched without the knowledge of the community at large with special interests in mind, will accomplish any of those things is likely mistaken.

While polite, meetings leading up to the final decision – a public hearing Sept. 23 on the zoning code, and the town board meeting Sept. 30 where members of a clique, 3-2, jammed through the undigested document – were angry.

The reasons have been spelled out in our news pages: West End neighbors, their lawsuit against the five-turbine Monticello Hills Wind foiled, took control of the process of revising the comp plan and zoning code.

By the time the community at large became aware of what was going on, the neighbors controlled the Zoning Commission, the Planning Board and three of five seats on the Town Board.

In addition to banning wind turbines, and original comp plan virtually prohibited any development along Route 20, the major commercial thoroughfare through the town.

After an outcry, and more measured inputs by people like Andela Products President Cynthia Andela, that was revised. On the whole, though, the plan pushed through Sept. 30 envisions the Town of Richfield’s future as agricultural – as dairying disappears – and residential.

That ensures “nothing” will happen, new people won’t move in, commerce will remain stagnant, school enrollment will continue to ebb.

The Republican Town Board slate – former Supervisor Nick Palevsky, incumbent Town Board member Fred Eckler and newcomer Ed Bello Jr. – object to the new comp plan and code.

They deserve voters’ support Tuesday, Nov. 5. Polls will be open 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the town and across Otsego County, where local elections will be held.

If elected, a first step being considered would be to revisit the petitions signed by landowners in the town to require a super-majority – a 4-1 vote – to pass the zoning code. If found valid after all, and Sept. 30 vote is moot. The code is no more.

If that happened, it would have to be just the beginning. A process – the particulars are unclear; this is a rare occurrence – would have to be pursued to come up with a new comp plan and zoning code that truly reflects the widest possible consensus among townsfolks.

Done correctly – not by any special-interest group, but by community leaders guided by only the good of the whole – a new broad-based plan might very well achieve what everyone wants.

That’s a community that’s come together, not torn apart, where “something” can happen in terms of jobs and commerce, where RSCS will indeed flourish again.

Vote Farwell, Brockway For County Board Seats

By: Jim Kevlin 10/23/2019 5:00 pm

ELECTION EDITORIAL

Vote Farwell, Brockway

For County Board Seats

2017 – now, that was a year for local democracy.

Twelve of the 14 seats on the Otsego County Board of Representatives were contested – only Gary Koutnik in Democratic Oneonta and Dan Wilber in Republican Town of Burlington got a pass.

Reelect Michele Farwell in county board District 2.

This year, regrettably, there are three, but one race calls out for an endorsement:
Michele Farwell, the Democrat running for reelection in District 2 (Morris, Butternuts and Pittsfield).

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Every county board has top performers, the most influential, the reps who make things happen.

Currently, that would include the peace-making chairman, David Bliss, plus Meg Kennedy, Peter Oberacker, Andrew Marietta and perhaps Ed Frazier. When they speak, things happen.

Others, certainly, may have a slightly different list.

A good case can be made to include Michele Farwell in that select group for one initiative alone: She suggested the county board join a lawsuit against Big Pharma to try to reclaim some of the costs of fighting the heroin epidemic.

Now, it seems likely the county’s claim will be recognized.

Just a freshman, she also is co-chairing the county Energy Task Force with Kennedy. Energy is a divisive issue. It’s unclear if a consensus can be reached. But both Kennedy and Farwell have shown restraint and consideration in navigating a ship in rough waters.

Like the best of the reps, she doesn’t speak a lot (or too little.) But when she speaks, she’s worth listening do.

Farwell is being challenged by an independent, Marcia Hoag, who should be saluted for running in a year when so few have stepped forward. But Farwell has earned reelection.

•

In the two other contested races:

Elect Rick Brockway in county board District 3.

• District 3 (Otego-Laurens), Republican Rick Brockway is amiable and approachable, the kind of legislator that every elected body requires. He knows
the territory, and he knows his would-be constituents. Vote for Brockway.

• District 14 (Oneonta’s Wards 7-8), Jill Basile, has the edge against Wilson Wells, a Libertarian and engaging young man. As the Democratic nominee in the Democratic city, Basile has appropriately attended the past several county board meetings to prepare herself for the job she will probably hold.

Unopposed, Oneonta’s Oliver Emerging As Political Player

By: Jim Kevlin 10/23/2019 5:00 pm

ENDORSEMENT EDITORIAL

Unopposed, Oneonta’s Oliver

Emerging As Political Player

Get to know Oneonta’s Clark Oliver. You likely will be hearing a lot about him on the political scene in years to come.

Clark Oliver with fellow county board candidate Jill Basile at a recent meeting.

A senior poli-sci major at SUNY Oneonta, he will be finishing his degree in December just in time to take office Jan. 1, as he’s running unopposed in the county board’s District 11 (Oneonta’s Ward 1-2).

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In the past couple weeks, two fellow Democratic candidates – Hall of Fame grantsman Caitlin Ogden, who is running against Rick Brockway in District 3, and Hanford Mills Director of Education Luke Murphy, who, learning Common Council member Michele Frazier is moving to Delhi, mounted an energetic write-in campaign in Oneonta’s Ward One – report they were inspired to run by Oliver’s enthusiasm and encouragement, as well as Village Trustee MacGuire Benton.

In an interview, Oliver – he’s a gutsy young guy, smart and talented: you may remember that, as a boy, he performed in the Broadway hit, “101 Dalmatians,” on its national tour – said he also encouraged Jill Basile to run for county rep in District 14, and Kaytee Lipari Shue to run for Common Council in Ward 4.

Disillusioned, then motivated, by President Trump, Oliver issues are a little general – transparency, fiscal responsibility, environmental sustainability, etc. — still to be precisely defined.

“Each of us is running to make our communities a better place – we aren’t necessarily a slate,” he said. “A lot of young people are excited and passionate about running for office. At many levels of government we don’t see young people represented. I’m inspired we all decided to run at the same time, and happy to see a change in local politics.”

Let’s see where it goes.

Democrats Signal Plans To Republicans

By: Jim Kevlin 10/16/2019 8:20 pm

EDITORIAL

Democrats

Signal Plans

To Republicans

Otego-Laurens District 3 Shift

Can Take Away GOP’s Majority

Friends, the Democrats are coming to get us, and it isn’t going to be pretty.

Chad McEvoy, the local party’s brainy director of communications, sent out an email on Oct. 1 that affirms an editorial that appeared here in early summer – the future of party politics in Otsego County will be determined in District 3, where two newcomers, Republican Rick Brockway and Democrat Caitlin Ogden, are competing for an open seat on the county Board of Representatives.

If Ogden wins, control of the board shifts from Republican to the first solid Democratic majority in county history. (In 2006, Democrats allied with Republican Don Lindberg and took control, but without a true majority.)

In the emailed memo that begins to the right of here, McEvoy points out “the political stars are aligning … This could be huge for the future of our community,” and he ticks off what would be slam dunks for a Democratic majority: Creation of a county manager, improving energy efficiency of county buildings, a community college, buying up and repairing blighted properties.

Nothing wrong there, but things get a little iffy when he gets into the “diversity of thought” in the party on two issues in particular. One is “doing our part to fight climate change” – that likely means no fossil-fuel bridge to green energy. Two is “whether we want to roll out cannabis production and retail sales locally in a post-legalization world.” We know how that’s likely to go.

As the Cooperstown Village Board – all Democrats – has proved, an ideology-driven governmental body with no opposition will do what it wants.

In control for almost a decade now, Democrats are only now hitting their strides and the community is shocked, shocked.

One, using a Comprehensive Plan that was largely developed without public input (as most are), the trustees stirred a hornets nest by looking to plunk an apartment house in one of the village’s finest single-family neighborhoods.

Two, the trustees approved flying the Pride Flag next June at the downtown flagpole, against the advice of the village attorney and the one attorney-trustee. If the Ku Klux Klan seeks a similar permit, Village Hall can’t deny it because of the precedent set; fight, it will lose, the attorneys said.

Three, blinking signs are popping up everywhere, blinking, blinking, blinking into local living rooms. Are they needed? Do they work? They are an irritation, and there’s an ethical question about government applying stimulus-response to the citizenry.

The point is, absent any viable opposition (for now), the village trustees can do whatever they want, and are doing so. New Trustee MacGuire Benton was explicit: If people don’t like the trustees’ decisions, they can run for office. So there.

Other than no fossil-fuel bridge and Big Pot in our future, there’s a lot of nuttiness in Albany that’s headed our way, with the Democrats in control of both houses and the Governor’s Office.

An interesting vote in point was the county board’s resolution against the “Green Light” law authorizing “illegal immigrants” from getting drivers’ licenses.

Every Democrat on the county board voted nay or abstained on that resolution, except Andrew Stammel, D-Town of Oneonta, who voted aye angrily, saying he had been sandbagged.

This month, county Rep. Gary Koutnik, D-Oneonta, even voted nay on the “Justice for Jill” resolution. The whole issue of the new Democratic majority emptying prisons will have to wait for another day, but it’s real, and the impacts will be far-reaching.

And this is just the beginning. The other day, New York City’s Human Rights Commission imposed a $250,000 fine on the use of the term, “illegal immigrant,” in certain context. Just the beginning.

On the other hand, give Otsego County Democrats credit. In the wake of Donald Trump’s election in 2016, they mobilized and organized. The county went for Trump, but a motivated party swung it in 2018 for Democrat Antonio Delgado, our new congressman.

The Republicans need to show similar vigor, as they are in the Town of Richfield, in organizing against a Democratic effort to impose a restrictive comp plan and zoning code on the community.

With a 7-7 split on the board – the Republicans keep control through weighted voting and an alliance with Meg Kennedy, Mount Vision, a Conservative Party member – the GOP failed to mount any effective challenge in the City of Oneonta, where Republicans as recently as 2015 controlled two of the four county board seats, plus the Town of Oneonta’s.

In District 1 (Butternuts/Morris), no Republican has challenged Michelle Farwell, nor was Stammel challenged, vulnerable if anyone is.

The Republicans need some soul searching, and to pull up their bootstraps.

District 3 is a good place to get started.

The Democrats, according to the McEvoy Memo, are going to give it all they’ve got. A sneak attack in the primary won the Independent line for Ogden, where only Brockway’s name appeared on the ballot.

The numbers were too small (30 to 4) to be meaningful, but it showed what can be done – what might be done. If Brockway is to be elected, Republicans need to give him all the support they can.

And there’s mischief to contend with, too. Outgoing Otego-Laurens county Rep. Kathy Clark sought out Ogden at the last county board meeting and chatted with her cheerfully for a few minutes. Later, Ogden said Clark advised her to increase the size of her name on roadside signs.

Clark broke with the GOP last year when the Republican County Committee failed to endorse her husband, Bob Fernandez, for sheriff. Republicans shouldn’t underestimated the damage she might do.

In the last county board election, this newspaper endorsed the Democratic slate, and several are performing splendidly – Farwell among them, but also Andrew Marietta, Cooperstown/Town of Otsego, and even Liz Shannon, City of Oneonta, who is retiring after one term.

This year, though, with the doings in Albany and local Democratic militancy on the energy issue, Otsego County needs the county board as a bulwark against a potentially destructive Democratic tide.

Come on, Republicans, shake it off. Keep District 3.

The Revolution’s Won Might Barbara Jean Morris, SUNY Oneonta (And Hartwick College) Create New Model?

By: Jim Kevlin 10/09/2019 5:00 pm

PRESIDENT MORRIS’ INSTALLATION

The Revolution’s Won

Might Barbara Jean Morris, SUNY Oneonta

(And Hartwick College) Create New Model?

•

“As chief executive officer, you are assigned all powers, duties and responsibilities appropriate to the post.”

KRISTINA M. JOHNSON • SUNY Chancellor

•

After the week that was, Barbara Jean Morris, SUNY Oneonta’s new president, must have heard those words with mixed feelings.

SUNY Oneonta President Barbara Jean Morris with SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson. (Jim Kevlin/AllOTSEGO.com)

Just three days before her Saturday, Oct. 5, installation, a threat to shoot up the campus – it turned out to be a hoax – had shaken the college community.

Earlier this semester in a school year that is barely month old, a SUNY Oneonta student took his own life.

Neither of these happenings were the new president’s fault, yet they underscore the solemnity of what Dr. Morris is taking on: The responsibility for 6,000 students and 1,000 staff and faculty members.

It’s more than that. As one of the top five employers and a $100 million budget, it’s not too much to say that SUNY Oneonta’s president is responsible – not solely, but to a degree – for the welfare of an entire county, an entire region.

No wonder the new president appeared contemplative, to say the least, at such a celebratory ceremony.

•

Looking around the auditorium, a number of faculty members (retired) have been associated with the college since the fourth president, Royal Netzer, who was succeeded by Clifford Craven in 1970.

What changes they must have reflected upon, thinking back to Craven, Alan Donovan (1987) and Nancy Kleniewski (2008)?

“Pomp & Circumstance,” or perhaps Holst’s “The Planets” or something by Sibelius were replaced by a Ghanaian drum-driven dance and the XClusive Dance Crew’s hip hop number, fun. Not better or worse than entertainment atf installations past, just different.

Particularly moving was the Javanese “Luk Luk Lumbu” (“The Bending Taro Leaves”), delivered by the 100-plus student World Chorus. It packed the wallop of a Handel chorus.

Dr. Timothy Newton, foreground, directs SUNY Oneonta’s World Chorus, which includes, from left, Amanda Davenport, Terri Forde, Lisa Suwa, Phebe Samiljan, Alysa Dutson, Alexis Ryder, Kalyna Rogers, Yi-Xuan Yu, Jacob Goldstein and Madison Hurley. (Jim Kevlin/AllOTSEGO.com)

In her remarks, SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson used terms like “competitive,” “fearless,” even “fierce” to describe the newest of her 64 college presidents. Perhaps then, but that’s not the sense you get about Barbara Jean Morris today – words like “diplomatic,” “upbeat,” “human” come to mind.

The sense of nostalgia was further evoked by her friend and San Diego university dean Noelle Norton’s whimsical story about the two dousing themselves in perfume back in the 1990s before delivering a paper, “Faith and Sex: Presidents Under Pressure,” at a presumably mostly white, male symposium in Boston in the 1990s.

Several speakers remarked that Morris is SUNY Oneonta’s second female president. When is that no longer news? The third? The seventh?

•

You might have come away feeling Barbara Jean Morris’ tenure won’t be – or shouldn’t be – about the celebrated rise of women (and blacks and other formerly outcast minorities) over the past half-century.

The faculty in the processional was mostly women, with many minorities of both sexes. Chancellor Johnson is an openly gay woman, as are four SUNY campus presidents. Students and audience members fully represented a cross-section of the United States as is and where it’s going.

Despite the public debate about race, hate, immigration, white supremacy, looking around the Dewar Arena the other day, you had to conclude the battle is won. If anything, over-won: 60 percent of SUNY Oneonta’s students are women, compared to 40 percent men; nationally, it was 56-44 in 2015. Is it time to look for a new balance?

Some would argue today’s much-remarked-upon national divide can be blamed, to large degree, on our colleges and universities, with the replacement of the Western Canon with gender and ethnic studies, and the exaltation of PC.

Now, why shouldn’t higher education in general, and SUNY Oneonta – and Hartwick College – in particular, play a role in building a new synthesis based on acceptance of the new reality? To wit, we are living in a multi-ethnic nation, where parity between sexes and among genders is widely accepted.

The revolution is over.

•

When she had to be, Dr. Morris may indeed have been competitive, fearless and even fierce. Now, her diplomacy, optimism and humanity will be more in demand.

Her new 13-word mission statement for SUNY Oneonta was much remarked upon at her installation: “We nurture a community where students grow intellectually, thrive socially and live purposefully.”

With a little adjustment, it sounds like a workable foundation for a future American society at large.

News of Otsego County

EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL

Drop The Threats, Negotiate An Agreement

EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL

WHO MIGHT BE COUNTY MANAGER?

EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL

ENDORSEMENT EDITORIAL

ELECTION EDITORIAL

ENDORSEMENT EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL

Otego-Laurens District 3 Shift

Can Take Away GOP’s Majority

PRESIDENT MORRIS’ INSTALLATION

“As chief executive officer, you are assigned all powers, duties and responsibilities appropriate to the post.”

KRISTINA M. JOHNSON • SUNY Chancellor

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