LETTER from JAMES DEAN Study Before Acting On New Zoning Law To the Editor: Sufficient affordable apartments, which the Village of Cooperstown needs, come from an efficiency of scale in single- and multi-building design and construction, lower cost of larger parcels of land, and lower operating expenses with the newest technologies. All of this comes with building new, planned developments, from the ground up. Newly built rental housing units, of all types, on sufficient land, are so important to the quality…
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Opinion - Page 286
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.…
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…
MATHISEN: Memoir Takes Us To 911 Bombing Editor’s Note: Don Mathisen, retired to Oneonta after a career as a reporter for WNYC, New York City’s NPR station and other outlets, published “A Broadcaster’s Life” last month, primarily for his children and grandchildren, but a few copies are available at The Green Toad Bookstore, 198 Main St. I ran for my life as the South Tower fell. I was just a few hundred feet away, standing in a crowd of people,…
Front Porch Perspective On Thanksgiving, Remembering Blue Four years ago on a snowy winter day, Dr. Fran Fassett came to our house and released our good old Blue from his failed body. It was amazingly peaceful, even blessed time. Anne and I had had Blue for about 10 years. He was a rescue dog who’d been picked up along Route 88 near Oneonta. Thank God, he was brought to our own animal shelter. A friend on staff there contacted Anne;…
LETTER from P. JAY FLEISHER Trust Science On Climate Change To the Editor: Science reveals the truth about many things and can be trusted. It explains things we take for granted, such as why the seasons change, why flowers blossom in the spring and leaves fall at the end of summer, and even why water runs downhill. Indeed, science explains much of what we see in our daily surroundings – it can be trusted. We tend to take it for granted…
LETTER from ROGER MacMILLAN MacMILLAN: Limit Flagpole To Stars, Stripes To the Editor: The citizens of this village owe you a huge debt of gratitude for last week’s editorial! Its message will hopefully serve as a wake-up call. Some of the Village Board’s decisions have been stupefying, like injecting a suggestion to fly the POW/MIA flag on the village flagpole. Another future issue will be flying the Rainbow Flag on the village flagpole. That proposal is outrageous. That flagpole should…
LETTER from RICK HULSE Sr. HULSE: Village Trustees Urged – Listen To the Editor: “Because they can” Cooperstown is someplace, not anyplace. As residents read in last week’s editorial about running for a seat on the Village Board, the reasons to do so are clear. Incumbents running unopposed has contributed to board decisions with little concern for their consequences. Recent examples of this are placing red flashing stop signs in residential neighborhoods, proposed zoning changes for village houses, and, in…
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…
LETTER from TERESA CHAGRIN Cases Like Zoe’s Common, PETA Headquarters Reports To the Editor: The horrific case of Zoe, an emaciated German shepherd who chewed off her front leg after being confined to a flimsy plastic carrier outdoors without any food or drinkable water, is a wake-up call to citizens to keep an eye out for “backyard dogs.” Unfortunately, cases of extreme neglect like Zoe’s aren’t unusual. Dogs relegated to the backyard 24 hours a day are commonly deprived of…
