Village of Cooperstown To

Villages of Sharon Springs, Dolgeville Will Receive $2.25 Million Apiece

By DARLA m. YOUNGS

Cooperstown

Mayor Ellen Tillapaugh didn’t know the Village of Cooperstown was to receive $4.5 million until Secretary of State Robert J. Rodriguez announced the award right in front of her during a press conference last week.

State dignitaries and area officials had gathered on Thursday, march 2 at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and museum, where it was revealed that the Village of Cooperstown will receive $4.5 million, and the Villages of Sharon Springs and Dolgeville will each receive $2.25 million in funding, as the mohawk Valley winners of the first round of NY Forward.

“I was kind of hopeful,” Tillapaugh said. “I knew we had an application pending with the state, and that it was possible to be granted $4.5 million or $2.25 million.”

However, she had been invited to many award ceremonies not involving the Village of Cooperstown at all.

When people began to congratulate her, mayor Tillapaugh knew something was, indeed, afoot.

“It could be anything. I didn’t know exactly, until it was announced,” she said. Tillapaugh and Deputy mayor Cindy Falk submitted their NY Forward application in September of last year. In October, they were invited to pitch their ideas to the mohawk Valley Regional Economic Development Council in a 15-minute PowerPoint presentation. That quarter of an hour really paid off.

Building on the momentum of the state’s successful Downtown Revitalization Initiative, the $100 million NY Forward program adopts the same “Plan-then-Act”