Editorial, May 25, 2018 Who’ll Protect Us From Centers? News that Centers Health Care has raised the private-payer rate at the former county-owned Otsego Manor from $300 to $510 a day – $186,000 a year, the state’s highest – is almost too sad to contemplate. Gary Koutnik, county board vice chairman and chair of the board’s Human Service Committee, reacted with the standard response: Since the once-excellent facility is privatized, what happens at Centers, nee Focus, is no longer the…
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Opinion - Page 266
Column by Mike Zagata, May 25, 2018 ‘Big Brother’ May Be As Close As Your Next New Automobile If you haven’t read George Orwell’s book “1984”, now would be a good time to read it. In the book, Winston Smith wrestles with oppression in Oceania, a place where the Party (Big Brother) scrutinizes human actions with ever-watchful eyes. Winston chooses to defy a ban on individuality by daring to express his thoughts in a diary and pursues a relationship with…
Editorial, May 25, 2018 Hail Doubleday! Historic Ballfield To Be Reinvented For 21st Century Fans’ Needs Too much discussion about Doubleday Field in recent years has centered on how it was once considered the Birthplace of Baseball, and now isn’t. That’s not a productive conversation. Let’s stipulate that boys played baseball in Phinney’s Field in the mid-1800s, as boys did across the country. Let’s stipulate that Abner Doubleday was at West Point in 1839, when he purportedly invented baseball here.…
Editorial, May 11, 2018 WERTENBAKER LAND TRUST PRESIDENT The Right Leader, At The Right Time? People generally recognize Otsego County’s geographic schizophrenia. (Schizophrenic, in the best possible way, of course.) To the south, there are 10 Interstate exits – 11 if you count Sidney’s – largely undeveloped (except Exits 14-15, at Southside Oneonta), ideal for commerce, manufacturing, distribution and other job-creating uses. To the north is the pristine Glimmerglass watershed, a national environmental icon, surrounded by pretty hamlets and villages,…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski on May 11, 2018 Money Made Out Of Thin Air, But Be Sure To Repay Lenders You’ve got to have money to make money, the saying goes. If you have money, you can invest (or speculate) in something you hope will produce a profitable return. If you don’t have money, you’ll need to figure out where you can get some. There are two basic options for most people: work and debt, and they usually go together.…
Column by James Dean, May 11, 2018 To Succeed, Otsego County Must Be Known Editor’s Note: James R. Dean, the Cooperstown village trustee, has been proprietor of New York Custom Curved Wood Stair Railings & Handrailings locally since 1973. In last week’s Part I, he analyzed out economic-development challenges we face. This week, Part II offers solutions. So what is the plan? Almost everything that has been done so far to increase our population and business base, while very good,…
Editorial, May 11, 2018 How Can Anyone Process Eric Schneiderman’s Sudden Fall? The Cooperstown Rotary Club starts its meeting with song, and the first this past Tuesday went, in part: I’d like to build the world a home, and furnish it with love… I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony… I’d like to see the world for once, all standing hand in hand And hear them echo through the hills For peace throughout the land.…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski, May 5, 2018 More Gas? Only If Paired With Equal-Sized Renewable Project When fracking was proposed in New York State a decade ago, the potential benefits were jobs, economic growth, lower energy prices, and energy security. Opponents (like me) worried not only about local degradation of the environment but about the global consequences of methane seepage and emissions for the climate as a whole. In most places outside of New York State, the frackers won the…
Editorial, May 5, 2018 It’s Decision Time. But Is There The Will? Question: Can Oneonta Mayor Gary Herzig’s administration make tough decisions? For one thing, whether or not to condemn the Twelve Tribes’ blighted Oneonta Ford property has been hanging fire since before Herzig took office. He’s now in his second term. There is state money in hand to demolish what is a public hazard and state money to prepare the site for new construction. All that’s hanging fire is…
Editorial, May 5, 2018 If We Want Solar Energy, Let’s Get Serious About It If we care about solar energy, it’s time to get serious about it, don’cha think? Happily, Otsego 2000 may be doing just that, having taken a leadership role among local environmental groups on this matter. On Feb. 24, its board adopted a resolution that reads, in part: “Climate change, driven in large party by fossil-fuel use, is a significant threat to our region and way of…