EDITORIAL Action Needed, And Responsible Majority Acted 9 ACCEPTED IMPERATIVE; 5 DIDN’T Sometimes things have to be done. Imperatives, they’re called. Such is the regrettable layoff of 59 county workers, a decision made May 20, a week ago Wednesday, by the Otsego County Board of Representatives. The layoffs go into effect Monday, June 8, the day county government is allowed to reopen. The vote was 9-4-1, with the nays all Democrats: a veteran county rep, Andrew Stammell, Town of Oneonta,…
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Opinion - Page 273
FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE Off To Civitan Convention, Lad Sailed On Packet Line By JIM ATWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Fifteen years old. Never away from home overnight without my parents. And yet, wonderful! Sprung loose for two days on my own – with the night in between to be spent on a 250-mile trip on a steam packet, traveling down Chesapeake Bay from Baltimore, Md., to Norfolk, Va. I owe that dazzling adventure to the Annapolis Civitan Club, which had…
Life In The Time of COVID-19 Suffer The Poor Children There remains a lot about SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 that we don’t know. What was “common knowledge” yesterday could be proved wrong tomorrow. The risk of morbidity and mortality in children was one of the things we thought we knew but now appears that we didn’t. SARS-CoV-2, the currently accepted scientific name for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, appears to be the precipitating cause of a newly recognized syndrome that causes…
Letter From CHIP NORTHRUP County Primus Inter Paras To the Editor: Otsego County’s response to The Plague has been as good as anywhere in Europe or Asia and better than most places in America. For that reason, the county is on track to safely reopen ahead of almost any other place in America, having met Governor Cuomo’s requirements. By stark contrast, Texas is next to last in testing per capita, there are no contract tracers, little social distancing and few masks.…
COLUMN Worst Place To Live? Oneonta Family Enjoys It! The following May we moved to Red Lake Falls. Our family – me; Briana; Jack; Charles; Tiber, our 70-pound beagle-basset mix; and Ivy, our 12-year-old cat – arrived on a Sunday. The closing on the house was scheduled for the following day, but the previous owners, the Kleins, told us they’d leave the door open and…
Letter From ANDREW STAMMEL Let’s Revisit One Oneonta To the Editor: As we enter Phase One of the easing of COVID-related public health restrictions, it is important to reflect on where we are, but also where we came from and where we are going. We are poised to surpass the sobering milestone of 100,000 dead Americans this Memorial Weekend, after just two short months of viral spread. NY’s “PAUSE” went into effect as the rate of infection and death was…
EDITORIAL Every Business Should Build On DMCOC’s Smart Marketing It’s been hard to approximate layoffs. Business owners don’t want to announce them, and the monthly figures seem so theoretical. Bassett Healthcare Network, people figure – and have heard anecdotally from time to time – has certainly furloughed and cut back hours after closing two floors and halting elective surgeries while coronavirus was considered a pending local emergency. But it doesn’t want to brag about it either. So the county Board…
Editorial For Good Of All, Hope Marty Patton Right It may turn out Marty Patton made the right call, delaying opening of his Cooperstown All Star Village, the youth baseball tournament camp in West Oneonta, in hopes of salvaging at least some of the 2020 season. Things are happening so quickly. With this week’s Glimmerglass Fest cancellation, pretty much all of the major summer activities have been cancelled or delayed – mostly notably, of course, Derek Jeter’s July 26 Induction…
Editorial COVID-19 War Not Over, But Let’s Take Victory Lap Let’s take a victory lap. As of Monday, May 4, the coronavirus threat in Otsego County had been reduced to one case. One case in the whole county. It’s a battle won, not the war. Testing for the coronavirus identified 62 positive infections once symptoms appeared, through the Bassett Hospital hotline (547-5555) and other means. In all likelihood, though, there is still coronavirus in our neighborhoods. Testing for antigens, which…
Editorial First Cooperstown Village Election Was A Wild One Editor’s Note: The uncertainly surrounding this year’s village elections locally and throughout New York State, now scheduled six months late on Sept. 15, brought to mind the tumult surrounding Cooperstown’s first village elections, recounted in Alan Taylor’s “William Cooper’s Town,” which won a 1996 Pulitzer Prize. The (state) Legislature (in 1807) was considering two rival petitions to incorporate the village at the foot of Lake Otsego. Incorporation would provide Cooperstown with…
