Advertisement. Advertise with us

Criticism Sours $2M Grants For Downtown

Railyard Naysayers

Sink Mayor’s Bullish

State Of City Speech

Mayor Herzig

By PATRICK WAGER
& JIM KEVLIN

ONEONTA – In his 2019 State of the State speech, Mayor Gary Herzig Tuesday, March 5, said everyone wants to get to “net zero,” but – “please” – don’t oppose a plan for the D&H railyards “to create much-needed jobs.”
Particularly, “while we go about enjoying our indoor tennis courts, gyms, swimming pools and theaters – all heated with gas. These are not the values of the people of the City of Oneonta,” he said.
The plea fell on 112 sets of deaf ears.
This was supposed to be  a celebratory evening, with Herzig and former mayor Kim Muller, who chaired the DRI (Downtown Revitalization Initiative) committee, announcing $2 million in grants for façade improvements, signage and redevelopment of upper floors for housing in the city’s downtown.
But as speaker after speaker – 30 in all, speaking for three minutes each – criticized the GEIS (generic environmental impact statement) on a multi-million-dollar plan to redevelop the 88-acre D&Y Railyards, time ran out and no announcement occurred.
The mood in the Foothills Performing Arts Center black-box theater – the Common Council meeting was held there to accommodate happy grant recipients – was polite, but intense. There were no outbursts of emotion.
For the next 90 minutes, though, the speakers peppered Council members with criticism about the keystone economic-development proposal that City Hall and Otsego Now have been working on for three years.
SUNY Oneonta chemistry professor Ron Bishop, a Middlefield resident, set the tone: “The railyards is a brownfield, not a good place for food processing and construction. Micro-particles will become airborne, and are easy to absorb into your lungs.”
Only Seth Clark, the Common Council candidate who operates a student-rental business, struck a contrary note: “We need hundreds and hundreds of jobs,” he said. “We not only owe our children the future, we owe them a couple of hot meals a day.”

 

Posted

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Related Articles

LET’S UNITE, FIGHT COVID-19’S THREAT

LET’S UNITE, FIGHT COVID-19’S THREAT Community Foundation Launches Countywide Relief, Recovery Effort By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com COOPERSTOWN – The nation’s first community foundation, founded in 1914, is in Cleveland, Ohio, and in recent years it identified a lack of “capital wealth” as preventing the city’s blighted neighborhoods from rebounding. “With a consortium of business people, government organizations and charities, they’ve funded several hundred small businesses in those neighborhoods. “Funding entrepreneurship kept wealth in the community,” said Harry Levine, chairman of the new Community Foundation of Otsego County. It’s creation was announced Tuesday, April 21. It’s an example…

Trailblazer Award given at City Hall to women who are ‘pillars of support’

Trailblazer Award given at City Hall to women who are ‘pillars of support’ By KEVIN LIMITI • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com ONEONTA — City Hall was packed with more than 50 people Wednesday, July 14, as four women received the Trailblazer Award, two for 2020 and two for 2021, for being “pillars of support” in the community. The women who received the award were Stacie Haynes of the Susquehanna SPCA, former Oneonta Mayor Kim Muller, Oneonta High School teacher Cathy Lynch and City Judge Lucy Bernier. Mayor Gary Herzig presented the awards. Haynes thanked everybody in the room for the “very…

New Year’s Day Swearings-In Set In Oneonta, Cooperstown

New Year’s Day Swearings-In Set In Oneonta, Cooperstown ONEONTA – Mayor Gary Herzig, Town Supervisor Bob Wood, county board reps and local elected officials will be sworn in for new terms at 1 p.m. Monday, Jan 1., at Hartwick College’s Shineman Chapel.  The new county Democratic chair, Kim Muller, will emcee. Meanwhile, that morning, the new county treasurer, Allen Ruffles, will be sworn in at 11 a.m. at the county courthouse in Cooperstown by county Judge John Lambert.…

Putting the Community Back Into the Newspaper

Now through March 30, new annual subscribers to “The Freeman’s Journal” and AllOtsego.com (or subscribers who have lapsed for two or more years) have an opportunity to help their choice of one of four Otsego County charitable organizations.

$5.00 of your subscription will be donated to the nonprofit of your choice:

Cooperstown Farmers’ Market, Cooperstown Food Pantry, Greater Oneonta Historical Society or Super Heroes Humane Society.