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HOMETOWN ONEONTA E!
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Volume 8, No. 31
City of The Hills
& The Otsego-Delaware Dispatch Complimentary
Oneonta, N.Y., Friday, May 6, 2016
In Oneonta Schools, Happy Days Return
Huntington Library Goes Into Brave, New E-World By LIBBY CUDMORE
Budget Allows Hiring, Pool Renovations City School District. After years of tight purse strings and staff cuts, the $38 million proposed 2016-17 budget will restore eight staff positions and still raise Please See GEA, A6
By LIBBY CUDMORE
D
ing, dong, the Gap Elimination Adjustment is dead, and joy is returning to the Oneonta
HOMETOWN ONEONTA
Congressman Gibson marching (with former mayor David Brenner in the Santa Parade in Oneonta in November.
Gibson Says He Won’t Run For Governor
O
tsego County’s retiring congressman, Chris Gibson, R-19, announced Monday, May 2, he won’t run against Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2018. He had formed a committee to explore the race, but said he will accept an offer to be a visiting lecturer at Williams College for a year and is exploring other opportunities in academe. He also said he plans to spend more time with wife Mary Jo and their three teenagers. See his full statement at WWW.ALLOTSEGO.COM
NO CREDIT: State police at Richfield Springs have charged Virginia A. Reichhold, 60, of Oneonta, with charging $70,000 to fraudulent credit cards last year. CHECK IT OUT: The downtown parking deck was closed for two days this week to undergo a thorough cleaning. BEATLE SISTER: Julia Baird, John Lennon’s sister, will be at the Oneonta Theatre Friday, April 7, with the Mersey Beatles tribute band and to promote her book on her brother/SEE B1 SAFE AT HOME: State Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, is back at his Milford home, recuperating from a bladdercancer operation at Albany Medical Center last month.
OPERA
3D
printing, LittleBits electronics kits, coding small robots – but it’s not the science lab, it’s the Huntington Library. Ian Austin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA Increasing STEM offerJoseph Yelich
ings and “makerspaces” – DIY gathering places – are just two of the initiatives laid out in the library’s long-term plan. “It’s sort of like the old knitting groups,” said Library Director Tina Winstead. “We want members of the community Please See E-WORLD, A6
2 Mayors May Discuss Heroin-Fighting Effort SOLIDARITY WITH ISLAMBERG Farik Clark, mayor of embattled Islamberg, generated applause and solidarity when he spoke to a nearly full house Sunday, May 1, at Oneonta’s Unitarian Universalist Society. A motorcycle gang is planning a sortie to the Delaware County community on May 15.
By JIM KEVLIN
A
Jim Kevlin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA
Oneonta Audience Vows To Be There When ‘Patriots’ On Motorbikes Visit
to be down there,” said Paul Conway, the SUNY Oneonta poly-sci professor emeritus. “This is an opportunity to slamberg Mayor Rashid Clark told his fight against ignorance and bigotry.” story. Speakers ranged from Bill Simons, And the 100-plus audience in the UUP president – “No one should be Unitarian Universalist Church Sunday made to feel afraid,” he declared – to afternoon, May 1, rallied to the support of Council Member Michelle Osterhis community, which is threatened with houdt, who read a proclamation from unspecified mayhem by a motorcycle gang Council member Mayor Gary Herzig declaring Oneonta from Tennessee that plans to pay a visit Osterhoudt reads Mayor “stands firmly with our Muslim resiSunday, May 15. dents.” Ken Sider, president of Herzig’s supportive “We’re going to be very, very privileged proclamation. Please See MUSLIMS, A7 By JIM KEVLIN
I
Chief Remarks Reawaken Talk Of Joint Effort sked by the Cooperstown Village Board at a special meeting Thursday, April 28, for a progress report on the PAARI anti-heroin effort, village Police Chief Mike Covert, a former deputy sheriff, made a convincing case. He also dropped a couple of HOMETOWN ONEONTA Chief Covert deremarks that caught tails PAARI sucpeople’s at- cesses to date. tention. One, that the Oneonta Police Department hadn’t embraced PAARI, The Police Assisted Addiction & Recovery Initiative, because officers were more interest in arrests than solutions. Two, that county Sheriff Richard J. Devlin, Jr., his former boss, simply wasn’t interested. When the report of the meeting was posted on www.AllOTSEGO. Please See PAARI, A7 THE FIVE CANDIDATES – two Democrats and three Republicans – running for the 19th Congressional seat in their parties June 28 primaries met in a forum Tuesday, May 3, at Oneonta High School. See
AllOTSEGO.com
www.
HOMETOWN ONEONTA, OTSEGO COUNTY’S LARGEST CIRCULATION NEWSPAPER 2010 WINNER OF The Otsego County Chamber/KEY BANK SMALL BUSINESS AWARD