EDITORIAL In Nation Under Duress, A Verb To Live By The verb, “to accept.” The verb became action at 8:30 a.m. Monday, June 1, when Public Works Director Mitch Hotaling climbed a ladder and hung the Pride Flag on Cooperstown Village Hall. When the Village Board, with some rancor, voted last July to fly the flag during Gay Pride Month, trustees couldn’t know how the verb, “to accept,” might resonate today after three months of pandemic and a week of…
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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,…
EDITORIAL As With 9/11, City Folks Will Flee Upstate When Pandemic is Over Small businesses in small towns like ours, and the small City of Oneonta, are taking a hit right now. But for businesses that make it through, there may be better days ahead. At one of the daily briefings of local community leaders by the Governor’s regional representative, it’s said, a Power Point showed how multiple infected travelers – pinpoints, charted through tracings – flew in from Europe…
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 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…
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 With Facts As Guide, Let’s Start Reopening As the headline has it, that’s what Governor Cuomo is doing. And he’s convincing. When on April 16, Cuomo announced he was extending NY PAUSE from April 29 to May 15, most of us probably thought that it would then be extended to the end of May, then mid-June, and so on. Upstaters, given the daily reports of New York City’s spiraling death code, were in that frame of mind. So it…
EDITORIAL Reprinted From This Week’s Hometown Oneonta, Freeman’s Journal ANDREW CUOMO FOR PRESIDENT He’s Ready For White House; Americans Ready For Him Andrew Cuomo for president. Already, he seems presidential, never more than this past Monday in announcing his collaboration with five other Northeast governors in a multi-state council “to restore the economy and get people back to work.” Let’s do it. In the five weeks of New York State’s fight against the coronavirus invasion, the governor’s shown all the…
Editorial Inspired By 5 Heroes At Fire Scene, Consider Joining Good Samaritans What’s happened in the past week is another opportunity to be impressed about the brave men and women who respond, in dark of night and bright of day, any hour, any day, when fires and accidents happen in Otsego County. Training and experience have made mishaps so rare, we forget – certainly the public, but volunteers and ambulance squad members, too – that every fire call and crash…
