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Volume 8, No. 46
City of The Hills
Jim Kevlin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA
Oneonta’s Heather Mann was again giving samples of her Mann Made Cakes at “Local Foods, Local Spirits” Thursday, Aug. 11, at the Cooperstown Farmers’ Market, assisted by her mom Linda Burgher, who operates Action Lube Soda Jerks.
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10 AM, SATURDAY, AUG. 20, ON NBC
& The Otsego-Delaware Dispatch Complimentary
Oneonta, N.Y., Friday, August 19, 2016
3rd Time’s The Charm, Common Council Goal
Consultants Suggest Kinder, Gentler Strategy To Build A Consensus On Next City Manager
Consultant Jerry Faiella and Michael Ritchie suggested ways to unite City Hall behind the hiring of a third city manager for Oneonta.
By LIBBY CUDMORE
A Ian Austin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA
pproachable. Flexible. Someone who “gets out of the office and rolls up (his or her) sleeves.” These were the characteristics of the ideal Oneonta city manager, Jerry Faiella, NYS City & County Managers Association executive director, and Michael Ritchie, senior adviser of ICMA (the International City/County Man-
agement Association), told Common Council Tuesday, Aug. 16 “A city manager is never a ‘one size fits all’,” said Faiella. “But we were asked to identify the key characteristics of what kind of city manager would work best in Oneonta.” The two men interviewed department heads, Common Council members and City Hall employees to come up with a profile, and three words came to mind. Please See 3RD TIME, B7
ORIGINAL DONORS: SAY IT ISN’T SO!
Storm Fells Tree, Killing R.I. Camper
NY Preservationists May Raze Historic Barn By LIBBY CUDMORE
D
uring the violent storm that cut through Otsego County early on the evening of Saturday, Aug. 13, a 4-foot-diameter tree toppled onto a tent at Grand Slam Campground, Town of Morris, killing the man inside, sheriff’s deputies report. Dead at the scene was Ryan Sutcliffe, Cumberland, R.I., a financial analyst at State Street Corp., Boston, and a recent graduate of the University of Rhode Island. The campground is on the Otsego County side of Unadilla Creek, just across from South New Berlin, about 25 minutes from Oneonta. TEACHERS SPEAK: NYSUT, the New York State United Teachers, has endorsed state Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, for reelection in the Nov. 8 election. He is being challenged by Democrata Audrey Dunning, an Ilion lawyer. CHEAPER ENERGY? The Oneonta Town Board voted Monday, Aug. 15, to explore “community choice aggregation,” a new option that allows communities to pool residents electricity and natural gas accounts within a municipality to take advantage of lower bulk-purchase prices.
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Ian Austin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA
Steve and Trish Riddell Kent poignantly pause at the endangered historic barn.
Bullish Mayor Eager To Put $10M Into Use Tuesday, Aug. 16, told the Mohawk Regional Economic Development t’s an early Council, meeting at Valentine for the SUNY Oneonta’s City of Oneonta. Hunt Union Ball“Our target date room, about the for a plan for how city’s plans. to spend that $10 Local leaders, million is Feb. 1, including state Sen. 2017,” said Mayor Jim Seward, RGary Herzig, who See $10M, B7 Mayor Herzig
Otsego Olympian Sarah True Vies For County’s First Medal
By LIBBY CUDMORE
I
decade after donating family farmland to New York State, Trish Riddell Kent and her husband Steve are fighting to make sure it’s entire legacy is preserved – including a historic barn. “We gave custody of our family’s farmland,” said Trish Riddell Kent Riddell Kent, and husband Steve an Oneonta donated the land Town Board to preserve it – and member. “We now, this. were hoping they would protect and keep it.” The barn on the property is slated for demolition “any day now,” she said. Please See BARN, A7
By LIBBY CUDMORE
O
tsego County celebrates Oneonta’s Andrea Thies, who rowed in two Olympics in the 1990s. But this could be different. Sarah Groff Truff is being called “a serious podium threat” by Triathlete Magazine’s Evan Rudd, and she’s looking to make good on that threat at her second Olympic triathlon at 10 International Triathlon Union Please See MEDALS, A3 Sarah True in Abu Dhabi in 2015.
HOMETOWN ONEONTA, OTSEGO COUNTY’S LARGEST CIRCULATION NEWSPAPER 2010 WINNER OF The Otsego County Chamber/KEY BANK SMALL BUSINESS AWARD