Letter from John Hamill

City’s Progress In Question

I firmly and completely agree with County Representative Clark Oliver’s statement about the situation facing the City of Oneonta and the importance of the county’s role in this matter at the County Board meeting. The question remains as to why the mayor of the City of Oneonta has not addressed this matter and others. He bypassed them when the question was addressed by a few city residents and now it is being bypassed again, but he has also made the false narrative that the “city is making great progress.”

No, Mayor Drnek, it is not making great progress. As of last week Tuesday, the mayor said that the city is not doing well and gave false assurances that [problems] are being so-called “addressed.”
At my church and other public places—and on the streets as well as sidewalks and in front of the businesses on the sidewalks—there are hypodermic needles that any person can get stuck with and get sick and possibly die from whatever was running through the needles. We have a significant homeless problem that has been neglected for three and a half years and no progress has been made to create a homeless shelter nor any type of housing unit for the homeless.

The City of Oneonta has been described as a “diverse community,” which begs me to ask this: How many people on the commissions have a learning disability such as autism, are on the autism spectrum or are highly functioning autistic people? How many are African-American, Hispanic, Muslim-American, Jewish, physically disabled or handicapped, LGBT+, to add to the diversity of these city commissions? I suspect these represent a low percentage of those serving in the commissions.

Another committee is not going to fix the problem in terms of what is currently happening. Taking action, as well as being responsible and being accountable, will fix the problem. In my opinion, the only members of the City Council who are being thorough about fixing things and doing something are Murphy, Davies, Rissberger, Lipari-Shue, Harrington, Overbey and Falco. I believe the people need to know what their mayor’s intentions are and what his priorities and policies are, without false assumptions or narratives like “we’re making progress” when clearly the city is not making any progress.

This simply is not a Democratic versus Republican issue. This is a common sense issue. The question remains. Which is it, Mayor Drnek? Is our city doing well or is it going to hell in a hand basket? Just tell the public the truth.

John Hamill
City of Oneonta