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COOPERSTOWN AND AROUND
Manor Buyers’ Varied Ratings Stirring Debate Company With Lower Ranking Offers $3.5M More For Facility By RICHARD WHITBY
IDA Focuses On ‘Single Contact’ Mathes Is Hired Here To Fast-Track Ec-Dev
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he local development corporation formed to sell off Otsego Manor is facing a difficult choice between two finalists. Does it take $15 million for the home from Long Island-based VestraCare, a company that operates nursing homes in The Freeman’s Journal Kingston and Johnson City, or $18.5 milChristmas 2013 ended lion from Focus Ventures, which is based this week in downtown in Rockland County and operates a Utica Cooperstown, as village nursing home? crew members Mike On the surface, it looks like a noBosley (on ladder) and brainer, with Focus’s extra $3.5 million Quinton Hasak removed sealing the deal. But below the surface, the decorations. the companies have different track Don’t Like Paid records. Care at VestraCare’s facilities is highly Parking? Fight rated by federal and state agencies, while It At Ballot Box Please See MANOR, A7 COOPERSTOWN
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state Supreme Court judge has ruled that the five grounds for challenging on-street paid parking in downtown Cooperstown are “without merit.” Judge Kevin Dowd made the decision in mid-December, but the decision only arrived this week at 22 Main. Savor NY owner Brenda Berstler, with support of a dozen other merchants, brought the suit in June. While there is no legal barrier to paid parking, the judge writes “if you do not like the law, you can organize and elect people who agree with you.” For text of decision, visit
WWW.ALLOTSEGO.COM
GOP TO CAUCUS:
Cooperstown Republicans plan to caucus at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 23, at Village Hall, to nominate candidates for mayor and two trustee vacancies, according to county GOP Chair Vince Casale. Village elections Tuesday, March 18. DEADLINE NEAR: The
deadline is Friday, Jan. 24, for suggesting a name for the alley that runs next to the Inn at Cooperstown. Send your ideas to cynthia.g.falk@ gmail.com or drop them off at 22 Main.
Newsstand Price $1
Cooperstown, New York, Thursday, January 16, 2014
Volume 206, No. 3
By JIM KEVLIN ONEONTA
A Ian Austin/The Freeman’s Journal
Sandy Mathes as the “single point of contact” and Elizabeth Horvath as his chief operating officer at the IDA comprise the county’s new “economic development team.”
Induction 2007 Perfect, Mayor Waller Recalls
t the Thursday, Nov. 14 “Seward Summit,” Dick Sheehy, one of the nation’s foremost consultants on finding sites for companies seeking to expand, told attendees Otsego County economic development would go nowhere without
a “single point of contact.” What’s happened since must have been some sort of record. Eight weeks later to the day, plus one, Friday, Jan. 10, state Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, and Sharon Oberriter, chairman of the county Industrial Development Agency board, announced the hiring of Sandy Mathes, the former Greene County economic Please See IDA, A4
‘GRILLED CHEESE FOR A GOOD CAUSE’
Only Parking Stymied Planners By JIM KEVLIN
COOPERSTOWN
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eing Cooperstown, the only problem was parking, former mayor Carol B. Waller remembers about the Cal Ripken Jr./Tony Gwynn Induction Weekend of 2007, which drew 82,000 people to this village of 1,800. Excited fans arrived on the outskirts Waller and were directed to parking lots in surrounding towns. When the Induction ended, “they couldn’t remember what lot they were in.” This time, “maybe we have to give them a card or something,” Waller said. A related wrinkle: There were too few Birnie Buses, contracted to ferry fans back and forth from the field next
to the Clark Sports Center to their cars. Other than that, things were flawless, the former mayor remembers. “The Hall does a beautiful job,” Please See HALL, A6
AllOTSEGO.com NEWS UPDATES
• Wednesday, Jan. 15: Former Burlington, Vt., city planner Bruce Seifer lectures on “Sustainable Communities: Creating A Durable Local Economy” at 7 p.m. in the county courthouse. • Thursday, Jan. 16: CCS board meets at 5:30 p.m. to decide whether to put the $6.6 million bond issue defeated last month up for a new vote. • Friday, Jan 17: Cooperstown’s Lou Allstadt and Chip Northrup outline findings that there’s insufficient gas here for fracking, at 7 at Foothills.
DETAILS AT WWW.ALLOTSEGO.COM
Ian Austin/The Freeman’s Journal
Alex & Ika’s Alex Webster, left, and Tim Masterjohn of Oneonta’s Red Caboose, are experimenting with grilled cheese sandwiches in advance of Otsego 2000’s Sunday, Jan. 19, fundraiser at Brewery Ommegang.
‘Ultimate Comfort Food’ Becomes A Savory Success For Otsego 2000 By LIBBY CUDMORE COOPERSTOWN
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t doesn’t take much to make a good grilled cheese sandwich, but when all you’ve got is bread, butter and cheese, you have to make it count. “The real secret is to get butter with at least 82 percent butterfat,” said Alex
Webster of Alex & Ika, Cooperstown, and Cantina de Salsa, Cherry Valley. “We get ours from Europe … There’s less water, so it’s richer.” (American butter has 72 percent butterfat.) Alex’s grilled cheeses from the past two years had proved so popular that Alex & Ika now offers six different grilled cheese sandwiches on the menu. Once a year what is now the third year, Please See CHEESE, A6
THE FREEMAN’S JOURNAL & HOMETOWN ONEONTA, OTSEGO COUNTY’S LARGEST PRINT CIRCULATION 2010 WINNERS OF The Otsego County Chamber/KEY BANK SMALL BUSINESS AWARD