Letter from Ted Potrikus Mixed Messages Threaten Article IX Last week’s editorial, “Saving Article IX,” appropriately cautions New Yorkers to defend home rule and guard against efforts that would erode our right to govern our localities as we see fit.…
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Oh, there’s a surprise! By Ted Potrikus We New Yorkers used to leave it up to our state Legislature to fulfill the once-a-decade duty of redrawing congressional and state election district lines. They got so good at it they made the map of the state’s voting boundaries look like the inside of a lava lamp. We New Yorkers got a little tired of it, so we voted in 2014 to amend our state constitution to establish an Independent Redistricting Commission.…
Don’t underestimate her By Ted Potrikus Her beloved Buffalo Bills lost in a weekend heartbreaker, but aside from that, Governor Kathy Hochul has had a pretty good couple of weeks. She’s able to talk about turning the corner against the winter Omicron surge, with seven-day averages for new hospital admissions, new cases, and cases-per-100,000 declining in every part of the state. She laid out a blueprint for New York’s upcoming fiscal year, a $216 billion bonanza adorned with property tax…
Signs, signs. Everywhere the signs. By Ted Potrikus I get a kick out of the ROUGH ROAD sign on I-88 west, just past the Worcester exit. The overused “Thanks, Captain Obvious” comes to mind as my car frame rattles through the next dozen miles of highway that, atmy most charitable, I refer to as ‘rough.’ Closer to home, I look forward to the LED radar speed limit signs that tell me precisely how fast I am going as I enter…
Poor “Carol of the Bells” By Ted Potrikus It’s a lovely melody, to be sure, one that indeed invokes the pleasures of the winter season. It’s easy pickings for advertisers, though, because it’s in the public domain. No one has to pay royalties for its use, so it’s fair game. And every year, there’s some honcho at an ad agency thinking he or she is the first one ever to shout out during a brainstorming session, “Hey! Let’s use ‘Carol…
. . .Now let’s see, where was I? By TED POTRIKUS • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Oh yes, I remember: August 1983, leaning against a column in front the library on Main Street for a photo, thanking the people of Cooperstown for reading my Freeman’s Journal work that summer, and heading back to Rochester to begin my junior year of college. My boss published the picture with the caption, “I’d like to thank Richard Johnson for giving me my own column.”…