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HOMETOWN ONEONTA !

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F Volume 7, No. 17

City of The Hills

& The Otsego-Delaware Dispatch Complimentary

Oneonta, N.Y., Friday, January 16, 2015

Clark Splits With Her Original Allies Rowinski, Stuligross Denied Committee Chairmanships After Coup Attempt By JIM KEVLIN

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hen 2013 dawned on Otsego County, the county Board of Representatives was deadlocked over a chairman. At the organizational meeting Wednesday, Jan. 2, votes for Jim Powers, R-Butternuts, and Rich Murphy, D-Town of Oneonta, had failed. What to do? Oneonta Democrat Linda Rowinski raised her head and looked quizzically at Kathy Clark, the Otego Republican. Clark didn’t shake her head. Rowinski nominate her and, with the help of fellow Oneonta Democrat Kay Stuligross, a bipartisan majority elected the county board’s first woman chair. What a difference two years make. Ian Austin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA

Connor Quarino, Oneonta, practices his shot at the Elks Club’s Hoop Shoot Saturday, Jan. 10, in the OHS Middle School gymnasium.

Congressional Local Drought May Be At End

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ith U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson’s announcement he won’t run again in 2016, state Sen. Jim Seward, RMilford, is being mentioned as a possible candidate. If Seward were to run and win, he would be the first congressman from Otsego County since George Fairchild (1907-1919), Oneonta Herald editor who later became the first chairman of the IBM board. The first local congressman from Otsego County was William Cooper, founder of Cooperstown and of The Freeman’s Journal, Hometown Oneonta’s sister newspaper. OTHER CHOICE: SUNY Delhi Provost and former Oneonta mayor John Nader made it to the final four, but Herkimer County Community College announced Tuesday, Jan. 13, that Cathleen C. McColgin, senior vice president at Onondaga Community College, Syracuse, will be its next president. AFTER HOURS: The Otsego County Chamber is planning a “Business After Hours” 4-6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22, at the Plains at Parish Homestead. Tours available.

HOMETOWN ONEONTA file photo

For returning amity to the county Board of Representatives, Kathy Clark, center, Kay Stuligross, left, and Linda Rowinski were this newspaper’s 2013 Citizens of the Year.

At this year’s reorganizational meeting Wednesday, Jan. 7, Clark was facing a Democratbacked challenge from Powers. When the dust settled, Clark had carried the day and her former allies, Rowinski and Stuligross, were without committee chairmanships. The sequence of events began around New Year’s weekend, when Rowinski called Powers: Would you support a Democrat for chair? Perhaps Stuligross or Gary Koutnik, D-Oneonta? “We needed a new direction; we needed a new leader,” Rowinski explained later. According to county Rep. Don Lindberg, RWorcester, Powers replied: No, but would you support me as an alternative to Kathy Clark? “He was not working to take that position,” said Rowinski. “But he was willing to take it.” And Please See COUP, A5

DEC HEARING HELD IN ONEONTA

The ‘Nays’ Have It At Pipeline Forum Lisa Barr, Oneonta, was among the 80 people, mostly opponents of the Constitution Pipeline, at DEC’s Tuesday, Jan. 13, hearing at SUNY Oneonta.

Ian Austin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA

When Oneonta nonprofits find themselves in transition, how often has Cheri Albrecht come to the rescue?

Her Goal: To Better The World By LIBBY CUDMORE

W Ian Austin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA

By LIBBY CUDMORE

‘C

onstitution Pipeline Means Jobs!” “Constitution Pipeline Means Economic Development!” These were the messages, bright on truck-mounted LED screens, that greeted supporters and objectors Tues-

day evening, Jan. 13, as they entered SUNY Oneonta’s Lecture Hall #3, where the state Department of Environmental Conservation was holding a public hearing on the Constitution Pipeline. But inside, the majority of the 80 speakers who signed up for three minutes to address DEC Administrative Law Judge Molly McBride and

Stephen Tomasik, point of contact between the DEC and the pipeline, offered a contrary point of view. “A lot of us pushed to deny frackers the right to spoil our land with wells,” said Larry Bennett, Brewery Ommegang’s Creative Services manager. “Now we need to deny the pipeline. These companies have the right to Please See HEARING, A6

hen anyone needs help, Cheri Albrecht is there. “Injustice has always bothered me,” she said. “I marched against the war in Vietnam, I heard Martin Luther King Jr. speak at North Manchester University. I helped establish the third domestic violence shelter in Ohio, women’s shelters in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I’ve always been a helper.” Currently, Albrecht has Please See ALBRECHT, A6

HOMETOWN ONEONTA, OTSEGO COUNTY’S LARGEST CIRCULATION NEWSPAPER 2010 WINNER OF The Otsego County Chamber/KEY BANK SMALL BUSINESS AWARD

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