County Rep. Ed Frazier, R-Unadilla, center, discusses today’s M&C raises with colleagues, clockwise from left, county Reps. Keith McCarty, Meg Kennedy, Adrienne Martini and Gary Koutnik. Upper left, county board Chair David Bliss reviews agenda with Carol McGovern, clerk of the board. (Jennifer Hill/AllOTSEGO.com)
COOPERSTOWN – The Otsego County Board of Representatives made it official today.
With only one dissenting vote from Andrew Stammel, D-Oneonta, the representatives voted a half-million dollars worth of raises for department heads and managers – including $3,000 for themselves, their first raise since the $250 in 2008.
M&C county employees’ titles and current salaries range widely, from Deputy Director of Community Services earning a stipend of $3,000 to the District Attorney having an annual salary of almost $200K. Personnel Director Penny Gentile said she could not give exact percentages of the raises because they were “varying figures” and a list of them had not yet been drawn up.
“I met with Mr. Hobbie and explained to him his rights to an immediate detention hearing and a preliminary hearing,” Zimmer wrote in a memo to Magistrate Judge Therese Wiley Dancks. “Mr. Hobbie told me he understands those rights and that he agrees to waive those rights at this time, reserving his right to request such hearings in the future.”
The photo shows how a rollbar on a refitted tractor can prevent a farmer from being crushed.
COOPERSTOWN – From 2007 to 2017, at least 10 lives and more than $4 million were saved in New York State due to a Cooperstown-based program to retrofit tractors with rollover bars, an analysis in the American Journal of Public Health had concluded.
The analysis of the program, developed by Bassett Healthcare Network’s NYCAMH (New York Center for Agricultural Medicine & Health), found that a combination of social marketing and rebates saves lives and money.
Over the decade, the rollbars were affixed to 2,510 tractors built before 1995.
COOPERSTOWN – Today’s detention hearing for Justin Hobbie, 41, the CCS phys-ed teacher facing child pornography charges, has been rescheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 19, in U.S. District Court in Syracuse.
Though he was scheduled for this afternoon, his lawyer, Kimberly Zimmer, Syracuse, requested the adjournment, and Magistrate Judge Therese Wiley Dancks agreed to move it one week.
Artist’s rendering delineated the concept for Doubleday Field’s third-base, although the particular are expected to evolve before construction begins. (Courtesy Village of Cooperstown)
COOPERTOWN – The Village of Cooperstown today received a $1 million grant from Assemblyman Bill Magee, D-Nelson, part of $5 million it has received so far to renovate Doubleday Field.
The $1 million from the retiring assemblyman can be added to another $1 million from state Sen. Jim Seward’s office last spring, then $3 million from Governor Cuomo’s Empire State Development Corp. as Induction Weekend 2018 began.
Another $800,000 is being sought from other sources, according to Mayor Ellen Tillapaugh Kuch.
COOPERSTOWN – James Elwood Jackson, a retired state trooper and World War II veteran, passed away Saturday night, Dec. 8, 2018, at Cooperstown Center for Rehabilitation & Nursing. He was 93.
Born Feb. 15, 1925, in Endicott, he was the only child of Raymon James Jackson and Elizabeth J. Cass Jackson. Immediately after graduating from Owego Free Academy, James enlisted in the Navy and proudly served his country during World War II, first aboard a merchant marine vessel and then on a battleship.
Spurbeck’s proprietor Mike Swatling and his Aunt Kristi posed in front of a huge, beer-can-festooned wreath that has caused much comment since it was hung in the past couple of days. Before it became Cooley’s in 2003, the wreath would hang annually on the Bold Dragoon Tavern, 49 Pioneer St. Kristi, who worked at the Dragoon, used to decorate it annually, and inherited it when the business changed hands. This is her nephew’s first Christmas season since buying the venerable Spurbeck’s, so his aunt dusted off the wreath and is launching a new tradition. Drive by Railroad and Leatherstocking and take a look. (Jim Kevlin/AllOTSEGO.com)
COOPERSTOWN – At the request of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Cooperstown Central School is organizing a meeting Wednesday evening so parents and members of the community can get their questions answered on the Justin Hobbie case.
Attending will be Beth Coombe, who heads the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division in Albany, and a representative of the National Center of Missing & Exploited Children, according to Supt. of Schools Bill Crankshaw.
Newyorkupstate.com’s reporter Ben Axelson followed up on last week’s article on the three highest-paid teachers in each of the 53 Upstate counties with the three highest-paid superintendents.
They are: Oneonta’s Joe Yelich, Cooperstown’s Bill Crankshaw and Laurens’ Ramona Wenck.
COOPERSTOWN – Yankees owner and manager George Steinbrenner received fewer than five votes from the 16 member Today’s Game committee, denying him a chance to be enshrined at the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Meanwhile, relief pitcher Lee Smith and White Sox designated hitter Harold Baines will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as part of the Today’s Game ballot.
