e B m a o c c l k e ! W HARTWICK STUDENTS!
HOMETOWN ONEONTA
Volume 4, No. 50
City of The Hills
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& The Otsego-Delaware Dispatch Complimentary
Oneonta, N.Y., Friday, August 31, 2012
OTSEGO ROUTE
UNY ONEONTA’S NANCY KLENIEWSKI AND HARTWICK’S MARGARET DRUGOVICH’S FIRST STEP ON TAKING THE HELMS OF THE LOCAL COLLEGES WAS TO DEVELOP BOTTOM-UP STRATEGIC PLANS. NOW, THOSE PLANS ARE DONE AND BRINGING EXCITING RESULTS...
FERC Seeks I-88 Option Of For Pipeline
Search Excellence In
Jim Kevlin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA
Felony Melanie, foreground, and Jo D Stroya scrub cars at Stewart’s Sunday, Aug. 26, to raise money for their roller-derby team, Oneonta’s Derailing Darlings, whose next season opens in October.
Summer Over, School Begins
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ummer’s over. K-12 students in the Oneonta City School District return Thursday, Sept. 6, for the 2012-13 academic year. Center Street School students have been divided between River Street and Valleyview elementary schools. LAST DAY: Sport Tech’s last full business day will be Friday, Aug. 31, and glass display cases, hangers, fixtures and other items of interest to stores will be sold off. Call 432-1731. FUN & BIKES: The Otsego County Chamber’s first Family Fun Bike Ride Saturday, Sept. 1, at Neahwa Park, to benefit the Delaware-Otsego United Way. Registration ($10, children under 12 free) is at 1 p.m., the kids’ race is at 1:30 and the family race at 2. SNAPPY SLOGAN: “The Catskills, Always In Season,” won Jenn Nolan, Arkville, a $1,500 prize from the Catskill Park Resource Foundation, which is seeking to re-brand the region for promotional purposes. SPRUCING UP: The pedestrian bridge to the downtown parking deck has been closed this week for painting of the northeast stair tower.
Fiscal Crisis In Past, Hartwick Celebrates Its Strong Traditions By JIM KEVLIN
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ast year, Hartwick’s faculty presented 130 times at professional conferences nationwide, college President Margaret Drugovich will relate with some pride. Ask her about standout faculty members, and at first she’ll demur, concerned that feelings will be hurt if someone is inadvertently left out. Then she plunges in. Tom Travisano, the English department’s Elizabeth Bishop expert. Archaelogist David Anthony. Philosopher Jeremy Wisnewski. Biologists Stan Sessions and Stephen Rudnick. Astronomer Parker Troischt. Political scientist Laurel Elder. Jim Kevlin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA Sculptor Stefanie Rocknak. Drugovich continues to spin out the Hartwick College President Margaret names, faster than a reporter’s pen. Drugovich surveys the scenic camPlease See HARTWICK, A4 pus from the library veranda.
SUNY Oneonta Focusing On Student Success By JIM KEVLIN
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hink about what it takes to improve a $100+ million operation like SUNY Oneonta. You need buildings. You need a curriculum. You need a faculty. You need students. And you’re just getting started. You need to maintain as you improve. So while Nancy Kleniewski recognizes SUNY OneonJim Kevlin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA ta was on a years-long trajectory of SUNY Oneonta President Nancy Kleimprovement when she arrived on niewski is moving “teaching, learning campus as president in 2008, it goes and scholarship” to the center. without saying there was much left to day, Aug. 24, Kleniewski described it this do. way: The previous administration’s In an interview in her corner office in Please See SUNY, A4 the Netzer Administration Building Fri-
Route May Generate $5M For Local Taxing Entities By JIM KEVLIN
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t the direction of federal authorities, the Constitution Pipeline developers are exploring a new route along Interstate 88 that would shift the right-of-way – 32 miles of it – into Otsego County. Study has just begun, but the new option could bring $5 million in property taxes to the county, towns and school districts along the route and create as many as 150 temporary local jobs in 2014, according to Matthew Swift, Constitution project manager. To a degree, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which asked for the alternative, was reacting to
the suggestion of state Rep. Pete Lopez, R-Schoharie, and state Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, Swift said. The two Matt Swift legislators held a press conference Monday, July 17, where Lopez reportedly called an I-88 route “the most practical, expeditious and least controversial option.” The assemblyman, whose district includes the towns of Otego, Unadilla, Butternuts and Morris in Otsego County, then wrote letters to Governor Cuomo and Please See FERC, A7
Empire State Bldg. Shooting Strikes Home
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f all the dramatic shootings of recent years, this one hit
home. Friday, Aug. 4, reports arrived that a gunman had killed his 41-year-old former boss outside the Empire State Building. It soon surfaced that the victim, Steve Ercolino, had spent four years in Otsego County in the 1990s as a business and fashion student at SUNY Oneonta, graduating in 1992. “We are saddened to learn that a member of our community was the victim of this tragic and senseless killing. Our thoughts and prayers are with Steve’s family,” said SUNY Oneonta President Nancy
SUNY Oneonta grad Steve Ercolino had feared the worst before he was shot in front of the Empire State building Friday, Aug. 24.
Kleniewski in an official statement. Ercolino went into New York City’s fashion industry soon after graduation. He was hired by Jump Apparel Please See VICTIM, A6
HOMETOWN ONEONTA, THE LARGEST CIRCULATION NEWSPAPER IN OTSEGO COUNTY, 2010 WINNER OF The Otsego County Chamber/KEY BANK SMALL BUSINESS AWARD 5798 State Highway 80 x Cooperstown, NY 13326 x (607) 547-1400 x FenimoreArtMuseum.org
American Impressionism: Paintings of Light and Life Through September 16
A rare grouping of paintings and sketches from American Impressionist masters including Childe Hassam, William Merri� Chase, and Mary Cassa�.
OFF�ADMISSION�
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(Detail) Child in Sunlight, 1915, Willard Leroy Metcalf (1858-1925), oil on canvas, 25 1/8 x 21 in., Florence Griswold Museum, Gi� of Mrs. Henrie�e Metcalf
Sponsored in part by Fenimore Asset Management and Golden Artist Colors.
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� K]h\ h\]g Wcidcb $2.00 off regular adult admission. Offer valid through 9/16/2012. No other discounts apply.