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Portable Pool Filled On Scene To Create Pressure For Hoses

Ian Austin/The Freeman’s Journal

By JIM KEVLIN COOPERSTOWN

K

athy Clancy was climbing the steps to bed at 19 Leatherstocking St. when she saw the flames. “Brian, there’s a fire across Feury photo the street,” she alerted her A portable pondTim was set husband, Brian, a former up in front of Bieritz. fire chief, veteran fireAyres and Second Assisfighter and village DPW tant Mike Molloy were at superintendent. the fire house on Chestnut When the call came in Street. “We were on the at 11:07 p.m. Wednesday, April 8, Fire Chief Jim Tall- scene in a minute and a Please See HYDRANT, A6 man, First Assistant Sam

At CCS, 60% ‘Opt Out’ Of State Exams COOPERSTOWN

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See Editorial, A4

IN REMEMBRANCE: NBT Bank will field a team at the May 15 Relay for Life at Dreams Park in honor of Donna Shipman, the Cooperstown-based regional vice president who died of lung cancer March 14.

PLAQUE ON ROAD: Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan’s plaque, on the wall at 22 Main since his 1999 induction, is on display in Round Rock, Texas, this weekend, for Ryan’s Triple-A team’s home opener.

Newsstand Price $1

Faulty Hydrants Slow Firefighting At Florist

Tom Pullyblank, Fly Creek, and Austin Doyle, Oneonta, played Mr. Coyle and Abel Murcott respectively at a Tuesday, April 14, reading of “Our American Cousin” at The Fenimore Art Museum on the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in the Ford Theater.

ith all the ferment against the Common Core, 60 percent of CCS students had opted out by the time state mandated tests in English and math began Tuesday, April 14.

The 250 students declining to take the test is a dramatic increase from last year, when only nine students opted out.

In Oneonta, 57 percent (433) opted out, up from 23 percent last year.

For 207 Years

VISIT THE NEW WWW.ALLOTSEGO.COM Cooperstown, New York, Thursday, April 16, 2015

Volume 207, No. 15

COOPERSTOWN AND AROUND

OUNDED

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Cooperstown’s Newspaper

O M C O PE

SPECIAL EDITION INSIDE THIS WEEK

Florist Reopens In 2 Days

Community Rallies To Support Wallers COOPERTOWN

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he first night, I was in shock,” said former mayor Carol B. Waller, whose Bill Waller photo Mohican Flowers’ existence A firefighter sprays available water on the 100-year-old greenhouse behind was threatened the night of Mohican Flowers Wednesday, April 8. Despite hydrant problems, the main Wednesday, April 8, when the attached 100-year-old store and surrounding buildings were saved from the flames.

H-PARB Tells Developers: Hotel Proposal Incomplete

By LIBBY CUDMORE COOPERSTOWN

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nsatisfied with answers to questions about building materials, rooftop views, air-con-

ditioning units and parking spaces, the village Historic Preservation & Architectural Review Board (H-PARB) Tuesday, April 14, declined to accept the application for the proposed hotel at 124 Main St. Please See HARB, A7

►NO ACTION ON MIKE MANNO’S DEMOLITION PERMIT/A7

greenhouse went up in a roaring blaze. “The second night, I cried.”

Then, and in the days that followed, Waller began to feel considerably better, as the affection she engendered in decades of public service poured forth.

Please See WALLERS, A6

Proposal: Share County Bed Tax Hulse/Gelbsman/Quackenbush Plan Gives $31,000 To Cooperstown as a tourism magnet.

It may soon start receiving $31,178 a year, under a plan COOPERSTOWN developed by three Republican county reps – Rick Hulse, Fly or years, the Village of Creek, who chairs the county Cooperstown has been looking board’s Intergovernmental Affairs for a share of bed-tax revenues Committee, and Craig Gelbsman received by the county Board of Repand Janet Hurley Quackenbush, resentatives in recognition of its role Rick Hulse Please See BED TAX, A2

By JIM KEVLIN

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THE FREEMAN’S JOURNAL & HOMETOWN ONEONTA, OTSEGO COUNTY’S LARGEST PRINT CIRCULATION 2010 WINNERS OF The Otsego County Chamber/KEY BANK SMALL BUSINESS AWARD

A-2 THE FREEMAN’S JOURNAL

THURSDAY, april 16, 2015

Cooperstown Finally Gets Bed-Tax Cut

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BED TAX/From A1 both of Oneonta.

Under the formula, all municipalities will get a share of a $208,000 bedtax allocation, but ones that most serve tourists will get the most help: the City of Oneonta ($29,354), and the towns of Oneonta ($29,279), Hartwick ($17,800) and Otsego ($11,000).

“I’m very happy to see this happen,” said Mayor Jeff Katz, a Democrat whose request for $100,000 had been rebuffed last summer.

“You know how long I’ve worked on it.” Last summer, Oneonta Mayor Dick Miller joined Katz in lobbying for a bed-tax split.

“We wanted it to be budget-able,” said Hulse. “We wanted it to be fair.”

For 2014, the county received slightly more than $1.4 million from the state, the results of an 8 percent tax on lodging within Otsego County, up $140,000 from the year before. The GOP plan sets aside $208,000 for redistribution, according to “two performance metrics.”

First, the total is divided according to the relative assessed values of municipalities. That is modified by another computation that figures in the amount of bed tax each municipality generates.

While the tourism-generators will receive the biggest share, the Town of Decatur, for instance, will get $3,000, even though it now generates no bed tax. The idea, Hulse said, is to create an incentive for municipalities to invest the money in ways that will generate more bed tax, increasing the accrued benefit over the years.

Cooperstown, under Mayor Carol B. Waller as well as Katz, her successor, have been arguing for years that the village deserves part of the revenues because it is a tourist draw.

In the election year of 2011, county Rep. Jim Johnson, R-Fly Creek, who held Hulse’s seat, got a $100,000 allocation put in the budget, but that fall he was narrowly defeated by Democrat John Kosmer regardless.

Hulse squeaked by Kosmer in 2013, but last summer came under fire for blocking Katz’s request for $100,000, saying if the money was to go back to localities, it had to be done in a systematic way.

With the Republicans in control of the county board, the Hulse-Gelbsman-Quackenbush plan now goes to the Administration Committee, then to consideration by the full county board, which meets next the first Wednesday in May. There’s no reason to wait, said Gelbsman, “let’s do it.”

Katz questioned whether the proposal is “a law or a policy. If it’s a policy, it really could be based on the whims of the prevailing board.”

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THE FREEMAN’S JOURNAL A-3

THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2015

LOCALS PREPARING FOR BOOK SALE

4 County Students Win SUNY Honors For 3.9-Plus GPAs

CCS 7TH GRADERS REACH OUT TO NEEDY

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The Freeman’s Journal

Volunteers – from left, CCS high school students Sophia Lesko, Grace LeCates and Kelly Mooney – sorted books Saturday morning, April 10, on the porch of 22 Main, in preparation for the Friends of the Library’s annual Fourth of July Weekend book sale. Two more book dropoffs are planned before then.

our Otsego Countians were among 131 students to receive 201415 SUNY Oneonta’s Susan Sutton Smith Award for academic excellence, achieving GPAs of 3.9 or higher.

They are physics major Marguerite Tompkins of Laurens, Lauren Loucks of Cherry Valley, who hasn’t declared a major year; Emily Schultes of Garrattsville, an Early Child/Childhood Education major, and Nicholas Capra of Oneonta, a chemistry major.

The students received certificate, gift cars to the campus bookstore and an invitation to the April 14 Susan Sutton lecture, featuring Dr. Joseph Pignato, associate professor of music.

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IN WHO’S WHO: Autumn Arthurs of Cooperstown was among the 50 Susquehanna University students named to the 2015 edition of Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and CLARK INTERNS: Travis S. Clark, Burlington Flats, Colleges. A 2011 CCS grad interned at Indiewire in New York City during the spring semester through SUNY Oswego’s Center for Experiential and business administration Learning. He is a senior majoring in broadcasting and mass major, she is the daughter of Jim and Maggie Arthurs. communication. He is the son of Vaughn and Deborah She is graduating in May. Clark.

Welcome Spring!

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Jim Kevlin/The Freeman’s Journal

CCS seventh-graders Tyler Velasco, left, and David Sellick claimed one of the prizes at the Canstruction competition Sunday, April 11, at Southside Mall, sponsored by SUNY Oneonta’s Center for Social Responsiblity & Community. Tyler conceived of a sculpture, “Rainbow of Help,” and recruited his pal David to help him build it. When the sculpture is dismantled, the cans of food go to help the needy.

Cooperstown Chamber To Elect 5 Board Member COOPERSTOWN

S

ix candidates will be running for five seats on the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce board of directors at the annual meeting at 6 p.m .

Thursday, April 23, at The Otesaga.

They are Matt annual ymCa member meeting nOtiCe

On April 28th, 2015 at 4:00 pm, the Oneonta Family YMCA will hold its Annual Member Meeting.

The agenda will include a summary of the Y’s 2014 activities and elections of board officers.

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Festival public relations director, and Andrew Marietta, regional manager state Council of Nonprofits (NYCON).

To RSVP by April 18, email Will Green at willgreen@centralnyattorneys. com, or fax 547-9160. $15

Perspectives

A-4 THE FREEMAN’S JOURNAL

THURSDAY, april 16, 2015

EDITORIAL

Teacher, Parent Rebellion Limits Common Core Possibilities

T

he numbers were still coming in as this year’s Common Core testing began in Otsego County and statewide Tuesday, April 14, but they were stunning.

In the Oneonta City School District, where 25 percent of students “opted out” of the statewide standardized testing for Grades 38 last year, 57 percent – more than double – opted out this year.

The numbers are even more surprising at Cooperstown Central: Where only a handful (nine pupils) opted out last year, 60 percent – hundreds – said no this year.

• The numbers – if they hold regionally – are a stunning rejection of Governor Cuomo’s leadership in New York’s rural counties, coming after the governor failed to win 39 Upstate counties last November.

Then, it was unhappiness over Cuomo’s failure to make a decision on fracking – the next month, he announced a statewide ban.

This time, it was the governor’s push in the state Legislature to allow Common Core scores to be used to evaluate teachers in a pretty Draconian way: If a teacher’s students failed to meet parameters

for three years, the teacher would be fired and lose his or her license – in other words, his or her career.

When the dust settles and if the opt-out numbers hold statewide, it raises the question: Is Common Core tenable at all in the Empire State? Think about it: To impose an educational regimen on pupils that their parents reject would be impossibly provocative. It can’t happen.

• To a large degree, Governor Cuomo was right in his Jan. 21 State of the State speech, when he sought reforms – not only the firing of teachers whose students repeatedly fail, but the ability of the state to take over consistently failing schools – as part of this year’s state-budget process.

Since the dawn of the 21st century, New York’s teachers have become the highest paid in the country – moving ahead of Connecticut and New Jersey – and yet student scores and graduation rates lag, according to an administration report, “The State of New York’s Failing Schools,” that recapped the speech.

Through the existing evaluation system – the APPR (Annual Professional Performance Review)

and a special $4.5 million allocation to help them improve.

Still, parents have legitimate concerns. One is that the computerized tests finally can create the much-feared “permanent record,” a perhaps-mythical stick exercised on balky students for generations.

The fear among many parents, grounded or not, is: Will our child at 18 be judged on tests taken when he or she was 8? That clearly shouldn’t happen.

• While the rollout, it’s generally agreed, was choppy, being able to quickly diagnose a student’s shortcomings in English and math and act to fill any gaps is a good thing, Jim Kevlin/The Freeman’s Journal both for the individual pupil and Parents and teachers first brought their concerns about for our nation as a whole, which is Common Core to the CCS board’s March 8 meeting. falling behind other industrialized nations in every survey.

– 95 percent of teachers statewide the issues weren’t about children In the end, the Common Core, were found “proficient,” but only as much as NYSUT, the statewide the outgrowth of a years-long bione third of students were “profiteachers union represented here partisan initiative of the National cient” in the standardized English through local teacher associations. Governors Council, is a good and math tests, the report repeated.

Cuomo’s proposed reforms thing. Let’s hope this year’s ap• were not aimed at rural schools parent setback in New York State, Right or not, the proposed like Otsego County’s, but at a if that’s what it turns out to be, reforms stirred local opposition truly dismal subset of institutions results in a sensible, humane reasalmost immediately, with rallies in New York and the state’s other sessment – and perhaps a limiting in Oneonta and a parent/teacher largest cities. And, in this year’s – of Common Core overreaching. outcry in Cooperstown. budget deliberations, the governor But this isn’t Salem. Let’s not As the debate went on, howdid receive the authority to act drown the imagined witches. ever, it became pretty clear that against 27 failing urban schools,

JAMES TALLMAN OTHER VOICES

Hydrants Failed, But We Never Ran Out Of Water At Mohican Flowers Fire Editor’s Note: Jim Tallman, Cooperstown fire chief, directed 70 firefighters responding to the April 8 Mohican Flowers’ blaze.

training we do.

I am very thankful to the public for all of the kind words that have been mentioned about the fire department, and for all of the photos would like to thank the folwhich have been forwarded to me. lowing for their assistance I also need to address the quesWednesday night, April 7, tion of the hydrant system. I have during the fire at The Mohican received many questions about Florist: the problems we had with the Otsego County Sheriff’s Office, hydrants.

Cooperstown PD, Fly Creek Fire The Freeman’s Journal • First, I must say that I have Company, Hartwick Fire Depart- Cooperstown Fire Chief Jim full confidence in our present ment Company #1 and Company Tallman where he usually can system. We did have one hydrant be found: At the scene of the #2, Middlefield FD, Milford that had previously been placed action.

FD, Otsego County Office of out of service by the water departEmergency Services, the Village would like to thank the members ment. I believe they were waiting Highway Department, and our of our own fire department (fire/ for parts so they could get it back revitalized CFD Auxiliary. I also EMS/fire police) for the hours of in service.

I

• Second, we did have a hydrant which did fail as they were trying to turn it on (this has been fixed).

• Third, we were using the hydrant at Nelson and Main.

Unfortunately, as a truck drove over some lines which were on the road it created a water hammer, and the hydrant did what it was supposed to do. A safety feature in it disables the hydrant so it does not damage the fire truck hooked up to it, nor does it create a safety hazard for the firefighters using lines off of the fire truck. This hydrant has also been repaired.

We never ran out of water during the fire as we went into backup plans during the delay in

LETTERS

FOR THE RECORD

Don’t Monitor Police Officers. Teach Them To Care To the Editor: This idea of putting cameras on police men and women shows the foolishness of people’s reliance on technology, of trying to solve a social issue with monitoring. This approach will actual create less hu-

manness and create bottledup aggression which will explode later.

Essentially people are saying, “We don’t trust you (police) to behave in a professional manner. We are going strap a camera on you and constantly spy on

James C. Kevlin Editor & Publisher

Mary Joan Kevlin Associate Publisher

Tara Barnwell Advertising Director

hom Rhodes • Jim Koury T Advertising Consultants

Kathleen Peters Graphics

Celeste Brown Thomas

Copy Editor

Libby Cudmore Reporter

Judith Bartow Billing

getting hooked up to the hydrant system.

• Fourth, the non use of the hydrant directly across from the front doors of the florist shop.

That hydrant was in service but the flow is very low so it was not one of our first options. If we were close to running out of water we would have used that hydrant to support the water supply.

I still would love to see the hydrant lines that are too small to give us a good water flow replaced when the streets are dug up and repaved. That would benefit everyone.

Thank you to everyone, and if I missed anyone I apologize.

Katherine Monser Office Manager Ian Austin Photographer

Stephenie Walker Production Coordinator

Tom Heitz Consultant

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you with technology. We are going to treat you like a child that can’t be let out our sight. A child who can’t be trusted to make decisions on his or her own.

The overreliance on technology has made people more and more monitored under the watch full eye of persons of certain power groups that pretend to have our best interest in hand.

They are taking away more and more of our freedom and privacy each day; with each new invention.

My brother gets into his new car the other morning. The car says “Good morning Mr…” Now, that is what his wife or children should say, not his car. Not an inanimate object. No wonder the Supreme Court Justices can’t tell the difference between a human and a corporation. They think a corporation is human being!

It would be much better to train the police in humanity and humility. Classes in better ways to deal with and subdue confrontations.

Each officer should have to meet with a therapist to discuss his feelings of his job. The police in Sausalito, Calif., did that in the ’70s.

It’s not a new idea. People need to better understand other people’s struggles to survive.

I have never been … actually, I was. One night I was surrounded by three young people with knives.

You have to act very precisely on what you know; there is no second chance or rerun. The more you know, the better you can act in that kind of situation. To act in the best interest of all involved, you have to be well trained. And/or lucky, as in my case.

And now the government is giving military weapons to local police forces. Just what is their job? Ah, but all what I suggest creates thinking loving human beings, not slaves.

Most all corporations and governments only want consuming slaves, not thinking human beings. How can you control people who think for themselves and care about each other? Let’s manufacture body cameras for every human!

Technology needs to be kept in balance with humanity.

R. SCOTT DUNCAN Hartwick Forest

Adolphus Busch Business Partner Erected Cooperstown Hops Barn Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Otsego 2000 Executive Director Ellen Pope’s testimony before the Cooperstown H-PARB Tuesday, April 14, objecting to an application requesting permission to demolish the former Agway on Railroad Avenue.

28

Railroad Ave. is a direct link to Cooperstown and Otsego County’s rich history as the largest hop-producing county in the country in the latter half of the 1800s.

From a review of newspaper archives, the building was built by Ernst Wattenberg around 1890 as a hop storage warehouse, conveniently right on the newly built railroad tracks.

Mr. Wattenberg is notable as the first business partner of Adolphus Busch after Busch arrived in St. Louis and before he married into the Anheuser family. After

leaving St. Louis for New York in the mid-1860s, Wattenberg became known as one of the most important hop dealers in the country.

According to the Otsego Farmer, Ernst and his son F.A. Wattenberg managed a portion of their hop business here for several years, until 1900 or so. The New York Produce Exchange lists E. Wattenberg as a member for many years after that.

The building was acquired in 1901 by Otsego Produce Co., which built a grist mill in the warehouse and began processing grain.

It was followed by Pratt’s Feed Store, which later became Agway. In spite of its many lives, the building has retained its original structure and design, with only minor alterations to its external appearance.

AllOTSEGO.com

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR WELCOME • E-MAIL THEM TO info@

THURSDAY, april 16, 2015

THE FREEMAN’S JOURNAL A-5

BOUND VOLUMES Compiled by Tom Heitz with resources courtesy of The New York State Historical Association Library

200 YEARS AGO

Humor from a London paper – A whimsical advertisement has appeared in one of the papers respecting a gold snuff box, which was purloined by one of the light-fingered tribe in Drury Lane, of which the following is in part a copy: “Whereas one gentleman by mistake, put his hand into another gentleman’s pocket instead of his own, and took therefrom a gold snuff box, and in a hurry forgot to return it to its owner; this is therefore politely to request the said gentleman will do him the favor to send the trifle by his servant when perfectly convenient. Should the circumstance have escaped the worthy gentleman’s recollection, the first time the owner has the pleasure to meet him in the lobby he will do himself the honor to give him a pinch to refresh his memory.”

April 20, 1815

50 YEARS AGO

75 YEARS AGO

175 YEARS AGO

Saturday, April 11, 1840 – Excerpts from U.S. Congressman John H. Prentiss’ report from Washington. Prentiss had become the owner and publisher of The Freeman’s Journal in 1808: “I borrowed of one of my Whig colleagues, the last number of the ‘Otsego Republican,’ in which I noticed the old story of my rejoicing at the victories of the enemy during the last war, had been revived by Mr. Barber. So thoroughly was that slander of my enemies refuted at the election contest in 1836, that in the trial in the Fall of 1838, when I was again a candidate for public favor, the most bitter of them did not allude to it. Now, I do not deem it necessary to say anything more on the subject, than that, if Barber was responsible in damages, a jury of the country should pass upon his malevolent propensities.”

April 20, 1840

150 YEARS AGO

The Death of President Lincoln – It is with feelings of deepest sorrow and regret – heightened by the dreadful attendant circumstances of his death that we are called upon to record the demise of President Lincoln. Painful would it have been, under any ordinary circumstances, to have made this announcement, especially at this important and trying time – doubly painful is it when we have to add, that the President of the United States perished at the hands of an assassin! The event is one which fills the hearts of the whole people with sorrow, indignation, and humiliation; it is justly felt to be a national calamity. The transition from joy to grief, from rejoicing to mourning, is so sudden, the blow so stunning, that

April 28, 1965 the magnitude of the loss can scarcely be realized.

April 21, 1865

125 YEARS AGO

Escape from jail – The following were three of the four prisoners who were in the Otsego County Jail – Charles Junius, Pittsfield, charged with robbery; Ed Pratt, Otego, indicted for burglary; Wm. Manning, Richfield, indicted for burglary and larceny. They were seen in their quarters between nine and ten o’clock Monday night. About three o’clock the next morning, it is thought, they took “French Leave.” The Negro Junius went as far as Westville, where he “tuckered out,” and on making his presence known was taken in charge by a Deputy and returned to his old quarters – which he prefers to such hard work as running away. The Sheriff is on the track of the two other men.

April 18, 1890

100 YEARS AGO

The big automobile truck of the International Milk Products Company equipped with a new body and spic and span from the Francis Paint Shop, went through the iron bridge a half mile below Phoenix Mills Saturday afternoon on its initial trip gathering milk from the farms of this locality. The driver of the machine, Charles Vibbard of Springfield Center, heard the bridge creaking and before he had a chance to jump the rear wheels had broken through the planking. The truck

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would have gone into the river, but for the intervention of the iron rods that support the bridge from the underside.

April 21, 1915 The death of Captain Roy Campbell Smith, U.S.N. Ret., a prominent member of the Cooperstown summer colony, occurred early Thursday morning of last week at Summerville, N.C. Captain Smith’s family has been identified with Cooperstown since its pioneer days. His great-grandfather was Robert Campbell, first president of the First National Bank of Cooperstown, who built the Lake Street house formerly occupied by the late Miss Emma Cory, and now the summer home of Douglas T. Johnston of Pleasantville.

His parents were Dr. Charles H. and Maria Campbell Smith.

Born at Fort Mason, Texas, July 16, 1858, he had spent his summers in Cooperstown since he was six years of age.

April 17, 1940

25 YEARS AGO

More than 130 village residents and hospital employees packed the Cooperstown Elementary School to hear Bassett officials explain the three-part Bassett Clinic project at last week’s public hearing. Bassett President William Streck, M.D., said that the proposed 110,000 square foot, multi-story, outpatient clinic, the new energy center and the expansion of parking facilities is the result of a “rigorous planning process that began in 1985.”

April 18, 1990

10 YEARS AGO

The Cooperstown boys’ varsity baseball team opened its 2005 season with a 9-3 win over Frankfort-Schuyler on Wednesday, April 6; then traveled to Schenevus the following day where they defeated the Draper Dragons 6-2. On Friday, April 8 Coach Frank Miosek’s Redskins kept things rolling by clobbering the Herkimer Magicians 13-0. Philip Pohl started on the mound for Cooperstown and kept the Magicians quiet for three innings before sophomore Zack Sittler took over in the fourth to pick up his first varsity win. The Redskins led Herkimer 2-0 going into the fifth inning when they put the game out of reach with an 11-run rally capped by Sittler’s two-run homer. “Zack had a great day,” Miosek said. Frank Petroskey was 4 for 5 including two doubles.

April 15, 2005

A-6 THE FREEMAN’S JOURNAL

THURSDAY, april 16, 2015

Recovering From Blow, Carol Waller Sees Opportunity Among The Ashes wallers/From A1 Her and husband Bill’s fellow parishioners from Christ Episcopal Church were immediately on the scene Thursday morning, helping move soot-covered plants onto Main Street’s sidewalk. The Rev. Mark Michael, Christ Church rector, blessed the scene, and his curate, the Rev. Matt Stromberg, joined the volunteers.

Saturday the 11th, Michael and Stromberg were back, among 30 Jim Kevlin/The Freeman’s Journal volunteers scrubbing, removing State Sen. Jim Seward and debris, cleaning up the backyard his wife Cindy console Carol – from lawyer Bob Birch to realtors Waller.

Ron Bishop and Margaret Savoie, even competing florist Mary Leonard, who offered to store any surviving plants that might need extra care at Carefree Gardens on Beaver Meadow Road.

The Wallers’ daughter, Kristen, was up from the Hudson Valley, and son Scott, the national champion soccer coach from Gonzaga Prep, was up from Washington, D.C. Even state Sen. Jim Seward, RMilford, and wife Cindy, were there in their blue jeans, pitching in.

“This is a great thing,” Waller said Saturday morning. “All these

people showing up – it’s so heartwarming.”

Sitting on her usual perch in the side room, cutting flowers, she was back in business, filling orders for three funerals. (The main building is closed for now, but enter through the side door.) Two brides had called to arramge lowers for their weddings.

After the initial shock, the former mayor is seeing this as an opportunity, rather than a setback. Soot in the main building will require a complete cleaning, plus removal of the rugs. The plan is to replace

the greenhouse, which stretched the full length of the backyard, with one perhaps half the size, she said.

Behind it, she may install a cutting garden – zinnias, asters, lilies – where customers can take their own clippings.

The Wallers are the third family to own the business, founded in 1901 by the Dereks. Her parents, Charles and Virginia Bateman, bought it in 1971 from the Baldingers. When her father, who also represented the village on the county board, passed away in 2005, the business passed to the Wallers.

Despite 3 Faulty Hydrants, Fire Chief Finds Enough Water hydrant/From A1 half,” said Tallman.

In minutes, the first truck arrived at an engulfed 100year-old greenhouse behind former mayor Carol B. Waller’s Mohican Flowers at 207 Main St., bearing enough water to power two hoses for 10, maybe 15, minutes. “Because of the way the fire was coming forward from the greenhouse, I knew we had to stop it from coming to the main building. As soon as the first truck got there, we set up a line from both sides to force the fire back into the Bill Waller building.”

He shows the continued, melted “We quickly copper sprayed wire. water on the exposures.

We sprayed water on other structures” – the siding was melting on Bieritz Insurance, to the west. “We knew they were getting warm. We just waited for the set up of the water.”

That included pouring water on the Wallers’ Bayliner Classic boat, parked about 10 feet from the flames, containing about 50 gallons of gasoline.

The hydrant in front of Jim Florczak’s Where It All Began warehouse, at Main and Grove, was already “red tagged,” out of service, awaiting parts.

Then, firefighters at Leatherstocking and Railroad reported in: The operating nut on the fire hydrant there had snapped, rusted out. Go to the next hydrant, Tallman told them, and they relocated, past Florczak’s, to Irish Hill, at Hill and Main.

By then, “I started to call for tankers, just in case,” the fire chief said. “The village has had a lot of frozen hydrants this year. Up by the green barn on 28, near Ace: That was completely frozen until a little past Easter. I wanted to make sure there was water coming, just in case.”

A second team, of Fly Creek firefighters, was at the hydrant at Main and Nelson, across from the county Office Building.

But as soon as that hose was pressurized, a fire truck ran

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over it, creating a “water hammer” that snapped the flange at the bottom of that hydrant – that’s designed to happen, to prevent further damage to the apparatus – disabling it.

The first engine at the scene, manned by firefighter Glenn Falk, held 1,000 gallons, and was down to half-capacity when a 2,000gallon truck arrived. Tallman had also dispatched a team to tap the hydrant at Glen and Chestnut, where he knew the water pressure was strong.

A portable pool set up in front of Bieritz was filling up, and Tallman knew his firefighters – he was deploying 70 at the peak, from the village, Hartwick and Hartwick Seminary, and Fly Creek (Middlefield was standing by on Chestnut Street; Milford at Hartwick Seminary) – would have sufficient water for the task.

(Tallman has also been questioned about a halfburied hydrant directly across from Mohican, next to the Bruce Hall parking lot. The 4-inch line serving it meant it would have been of little help overall. As water resources started to come on line, Tallman said, he held it in reserve: If the fire had jumped from the greenhouse to the store, that hydrant could have powered two hoses to douse it.)

Soon, the hotly burning fire – “a ball of flame, an orange ball of flame,” Bill Waller, Carol’s husband, reported seeing when he arrived at the scene – had been halted about 6 feet from where the greenhouse and store connected. “It has burned so hot, it had consumed so much, we were able to pull the walls down to the ground,” Tallman said. The deployment had taken 10-15 minutes.

“We were fortunate,” said Tallman. “Once we got that other water flowing, we had all the water in the world we would have needed, even if we had another structure catch on fire.”

Bill and Carol Waller had gone to bed by the time the fire whistle blew.

The pager reported Clancy’s first call – a fire on

not want that heating up and catching fire.”

Mayor Jeff Katz, who was at the scene, received an initial report Thursday morning the 9th detailing the hydrant problems, although it didn’t mention the one across the street from Mohican, or the one at Florczak’s.

Interviewed again Monday the 13th, he said, “Right now, they flush the hydrants and inspect the hydrants every six months … This is the time they’re due to go out there and do them again.” He added, “Clearly, an extra-diligent effort has to be applied, given what we saw last week.”

He said he’s been communicating by e-mail with Clancy and Dennis Elliot, village Water Plant superintendent, “about proper procedure and how to make sure the hydrants are working.”

By mid-morning on the day after the fire, Elliot had already repaired the two Jim Kevlin/The Freeman’s Journal hydrants in question, replacAll that remained of Mohican Flowers’ 100-yearing the operating nut on the old greenhouse the morning after was a chimney. Spurbeck’s one, and reasThe white building in the background is Bieritz sembling the one at Nelson.

Insurance, whose siding was melted by the heat.

The semi-annual flushings (More photos at www.allotsego.com) and inspections are done Leatherstocking street; but had melted (copper melts at collaboratively by the fire and water departments, Katz the veteran fireman quickly 1,984 degrees), and Waller amended his call: Mohican surmised a molten drop had said.

Deputy Mayor Ellen TilFlowers. And the Wallers fallen, sparking the blaze. lapaugh said the trustees’ were up and on their way.

Tallman, who is conductAt the scene, Tallman ing the investigating, thinks Fire Safety Committee, which she chairs, would had sent two firefighters perhaps water from this be meeting Wednesday the with AirPacs into the store winter’s heavy snows had to close the French doors dampened the wiring, caus- 15th, and would begin a post mortem. As Tallman at the back that connected ing it to arc. Three circuit demonstrated, she noted the with the greenhouse. “We breakers in the main store fire-fighting infrastructure could physically see the had popped, suggesting has “a number of redundanfire hadn’t gotten there,” the cause was electrical, he cies” that give fire-fighters the chief said. “We tried to said. options. “The bottom line keep as much smoke out of As it happened, a light there as possible. breeze was blowing up from is, our fire department is very well trained,” she said.

“Jimmy had this on his Otsego Lake, keeping the In an interview, Tallman fingertips. He had the flames from surrounding said water pressure to the whole plan worked out,” structures. “A high wind village’s 100 hydrants is said Bill Waller. would have been a probuneven, but his knowledge The fire had broken out lem,” said the chief. “The of the system from 37 years in a cellar under the potting flames were so high, they experience helps him work shed; an oil burner there at were going straight up. If around it. For instance, he first was a suspected cause, they had been going to the knew the Spurbeck’s and even thought it had been side, there are a lot of outinspected the week before. buildings in the back. If the Nelson hydrants are fed by separate mains, so he inHowever, two days later boat had caught – we did Bill Waller could hold up a melded bunch of old copper wire, part of the potting shed wiring. A solidified drop of the metal showed it

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Village Water Superintendent Dennis Elliot shows how the snapped off operating, right, compares to an intact one.

tended to use both, knowing one wouldn’t draw down the other.

In a report on the fire that appears on Page 4 of this edition, Tallman said, “I have full confidence in our present system.” But, he added, ”I still would love to see the hydrant lines that are too small to give us a good water flow replaced when the streets are dug up and repaved. That would benefit everyone.”

He recognized that is happening a street at a time, as road work ensues. For instance, a March fire that could have razed the late Frank Rollins’ house at the entry way to Cooperstown High School was quickly doused, because the main had been replaced when Linden Avenue was rebuilt two years ago.

Clancy said that, without further research, he is unable to say which neighborhoods have lower water pressure than others. But he said that, when downtown areas of Pioneer Street are upgraded next year when the new sidewalks are installed, a new main will go in there.

When a 100,000-gallon tank on Irish Hill was replaced by a 1.3-million one on Glen Avenue a decade ago, the water still had to move through too-small lines. “It didn’t affect our ISO rating at all,” said Tallman, referring to Insurance Service Office assessments that can reduce fire-insurance rates. People are paying higher rates than they would otherwise.

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THURSDAY, april 16, 2015

A-7

H-PARB Tells Developers: Hotel Proposal Incomplete H-PARB/From A1 “All the details weren’t clearly outlined,” said Roger MacMillan, acting H-PARB chair, as architect Teresa Drerup, who is representing BTP Cooperstown, the hotel developer, had to step aside.

“I don’t think we can consider this application complete.”

Then Drerup, a partner in Altonview Architects with her husband, Kurt Ofer, presented a 3D model of the project on the streetscape, as well as drawings of site plans and blueprints.

“We took a lot of geometric inspiration from this picture,” said Ofer, showing a photo of the site in 1959. “There’s a lot of rhythm to Main Street, and we want you to keep that in mind as you make your decision. But we don’t want to make it look like it was built in the 1860s.”

To mirror that inspirational image, the building’s façade is divided into thirds, with the restaurant set back a little more than the front door of the hotel.

But one of the H-PARB’s major concerns was building materials, which board member Ralph Snell asked about repeatedly. “What type of glass will you be using in your windows?” he asked.

“Clear?” replied Drerup.

Questions were also raised about the rooftop access, where a pool and dining area have been proposed. “If I’m standing across the street: What can I see?” asked Brian Alexander, H-PARB’s new alternate member.

“Nothing,” said Ofer.

“There’s a parapet to minimize visibility.”

The project was first proposed last year by partners Thomas Lagan, Perry Ferrara, Heroes of Baseball Wax Museum owner, and Bob Hurley,

who operates area Subway franchises, but was withdrawn.

It was reintroduced to the Village Board at its March meeting, when the trustees accepted the lead review role under SEQRA, the state Environmental Quality Review Act, and forwarded the plans to the village Planning Board, the Zoning Board of Appeals, and H-PARB. The ZBA, which is being asked for a height variance – the building is designed for 48 feet, 6 feet taller than allowed in village code – set a hearing at its next meeting, at 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 5.

H-PARB was being asked for a demolition permit to raze the former TJ’s Restaurant, as well to ensure the proposed building is in character with the rest of the downtown. It if had accepted the plan as complete, a 62-day clock for approval would have started running.

The Planning Board, which meets next Tuesday, the 21st, will review the site plan, including parking. The application says the hotel will use valet parking exclusively, and that it has room for 31 cars at the back of the lot. It, too, must set a public hearing before taking a final vote.

Even if all three boards were to vote aye, the Village Board could still vote nay on a required special permit.

Tuesday evening, H-PARB was given the opportunity to set a public hearing on the project, and to be the lead agency in administering the state-required SEQRA review, both of which members declined to do.

“We need to better define what we are dealing with,” said MacMillan. “And we need to define what we have to focus on.”

T

he Historic Preservation & Architectural Review Board (H-PARB) Tuesday, April 14, were unenthusiastic about Mike Manno’s application for a permit to raze the hops-barn complex renovated five years ago.

“Demolition is irreversible,” said Teresa Drerup, chair.

“This has significant impact.”

H-PARB conducted a public hearing on the application, but cannot reject it before conducting a SEQRA review on its impact.

Mike Manno, who has had the building on the market since 2010, was not on hand

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at the meeting, but did send a sharply-worded letter to the board, which Drerup read aloud. “The village policy is unsupportable, unprofitable and disappointing,” he wrote.

“All options should be on the table.”

“I’m sure he’s bummed,” said Trustee Jim Dean at the public hearing on the application. “But I don’t see why he wants to take it down. Lots of things could go in there.”

Manno can apply for a hardship exemption.

Otsego 2000 Executive Director Ellen Pope, who spoke against the demolition, said she would help Manno try to find a buyer.

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A-8 THE FREEMAN’S JOURNAL

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MLS#94956 $69,900 Build, Hunt or Subdivide! Superior views of Canadarago Lake. 35 acres is 50% woods, 50% open.

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MLS#97672 $29,900 Exceptional Value! Highly desirable location! Enjoy the babbling brook and 10 wooded acres close to the NYS Thruway. Priced to sell immediately.

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MLS#97317 $143,000 Historical Milford Home! Close to park, schools, transportation. 3 BRs, 1 bath, stained glass windows, built-in cabinets, hardwood floors, many updates.

Call Donna A Anderson @ 607-267-3232 (cell)

MLS#98732 $249,000 Seller Has Invested Nearly $300K in this 3-BR, 2-bath home on more than 30 acres! Rushing stream and waterfalls. Short commute to Cooperstown or Oneonta.

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MLS#98072 $75,000 Hunters! Private, 22 acres, cabin, lake rights, dock.

Build a dream home, hunt, fish, hike, enjoy the great view of Canadarago Lake. This is a special price.

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MLS#98547 $109,000 Home features 3 BRs, 2 baths, garage, ¼-acre fenced backyard, Cooperstown Schools. Wood floors, spacious kitchen and DR w/new appliances, woodstove.

Call Katherine L. Fistrowicz @ 607-267-2683 (cell)

MLS#97251 $44,000 Field of Dreams Rushing trout stream w/level fields and incredible views. 15+ ccres. More acreage available if desired. Priced to sell immediately.

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MLS#97947 $169,000 Renovated Victorian Approved baseball rental!

4-5 BR, 3-bath home is spacious and bright. An up-to-date home you will be proud to own.

Call or text Sharon Teator @ 607-267-2681 (cell)

MLS# 98564 $110,000 Milford – Completely renovated home features new heating system, electric, wiring, floors, walls, kitchen, appliances, kitchen cabinets, roof, windows.

Call or text Sharon Teator @ 607-267-2681 (cell)

MLS#93225 $86,000 Adam Karns 607-244-9633 (cell) MLS#98850 $159,900 Nearly $30K in Updates - Pristine and beautifully Spacious 4village BR, 2 bath house is close toupdates I-88. Large restored home.

All modern with backyard,charm. workshop/garage, shed. Make your vintage Priced to sellsmall immediately! appointment today. Priced go this week!(cell Call Leanne McCormack @to 607-287-8965 Virtual Tour: www.RealEstateShows.com/708598

MLS#96562 $479,900 Welcome Home! Stunning remodeled 4-BR, 2½-bath home on over 150 acres. No expense spared.

Cooperstown Village home. Seller pays closing costs (up Call Kristi J. Ough @ 607-434-3026 (cell) to $3,000 w/acceptable offer).

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MLS#96658 $269,900 Move-in condition, 3-BR, 2-bath home just outside of Oneonta. LR has cathedral ceilings, woodstove, opens to large front deck. Spacious kitchen/dining.

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MLS#98655 $189,900 Land, Land, Land! 100+ acres in the Cooperstown School District. Perfect for building, hunting or recreation.

Property offers over 2,000’of road frontage. Priced to sell!

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MLS#98548 $359,000 Close to Cooperstown! 3 BRs, 2½ baths, large FR, finished basement, 2-car garage. Radiant heat, AC. Call Katherine L. Fistrowicz @ 607-267-2683 (cell) or George (ROD) Sluyter @ 315-520-6512 (cell)

MLS#98939 $65,000 Owner Financing w/minimum $15k down. 2-BR, 2-bath mobile home on 1+ acres of land. Existing septic, well and electric—you can live here while you build.

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MLS#95480 $234,900 3 BR, 2 bath post-and-beam home on 11.60 acres.

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MLS#93990 $199,900 Location! Location! Milford on State Hwy 28.

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MLS#96682 $274,900 Fly Creek Victorian has 3 BRs, 2½ baths. 2008 restoration includes wiring, plumbing, insulation and kitchen w/island, granite, SS appliances, pantry.

Call Katherine L. Fistrowicz @ 607-267-2683 (cell)

MLS#95713 $215,000 Beautiful Views! Milford Schools. 3-BR, 2-bath ranch has full basement, 2½-car garage w/ workshop, stocked pond on 4.25 acres.

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$132,900 MLS#98977 DON’T MISS OUT - Super 2-family home in a great downtown location! Current COC. Clean, good condition, many recent renovations, vinyl siding, large enclosed sun porch, off-street parking, currently rented. Close to downtown bus route and park. Could be a great owner-occupied home! $124,900 MLS #94117

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Spacious 2-family home on large center city lot w/2-car garage, workshop space and covered patio. Downstairs unit has 3 BRs and upstairs has 2 BRs. Very large fenced-in yard would be perfect for gardening or recreation. Both units will be vacant by June so pick your tenants or live in one and pick tenants for the other. Golden opportunity for extra income or live in one unit and let the rental income help pay your mortgage!

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PROGRESS 2015/TO A PROSPEROUS FUTURE Follow Iron Logic, And Economic Development Will Happen

H

ere’s what’s new about economic development in Otsego County: It’s driven by iron logic, locally grounded, data based.

Take tourism. The privatization of the county Tourism Office into Destination Marketing of Otsego County puts hospitality professionals, led by the ultimate pro, Otesaga GM & VP Jim Miles, in the driver’s seat.

The goal is simple: “heads in beds.”

The target audience: within 300 miles.

TV, radio and print is being used; what’s new is cutting-edge Internet marketing, identifying likely visitors and delivering the message most likely to bring them here. (See Page 9) • Then there’s the five-point approach to attracting family-supporting jobs.

Dick Sheehy, a consultant with CM2H Hill, one of the world’s foremost corporate placement firms, revealed two pieces of the formula at the second “Seward Summit,” Nov. 15, 2015, at Foothills.

• One, a “single point of contact” – Sandy Mathes, who in Greene County was the most successful economic

developer in Upstate’s rural counties, filling two commerce parks, was hired in January 2014 to fill that role as president of the IDA, rechristened “Otsego Now” last week, part of a systematic rebranding.

JIM • Two, “shovel ready sites,” where recruited KEVLIN companies can break ground in 30-60 days.

Three parcels have been identified: 25 acres in the Pony Farm Commerce Park, 130 acres on Lake Street, Richfield Springs, on the village-town line, and 70 acres (see Page 9) in Oneonta’s D&H railyards.

• As they did last fall in Cooperstown, Mathes and Elan Planning principal Lisa Nagle explained the rest last week to 60 citizens gathered at Richfield Springs Central School.

To get state grants that make commerce parks buildable, a community must have a current Comprehensive

Plan – a written concept of what residents want their town to be. The Richfield Comp Plan is 30 years old; Cooperstown’s is 20, (completed before Dreams Park changed everything).

Only with a systematically prepared Comp Plan in hand – only then! – can any major economic-development initiative get funding.

Under development at the same time in Cooperstown is a data-based business strategy – a market survey to ensure demand supports wish lists – built around nine nodes: Upper Main, the lake front, Railroad Avenue, etc.

A market survey is also underway on the D&H yards, aimed at tapping into Governor Cuomo’s new $1.5 billion Upstate Development Fund to rebuild a bridge connecting the site to I-88.

There you have it: a single point of contact (one); current Comp Plans backed up by market surveys (two and three); successful grantsmanship (four) for the money to prepare shovel-ready sites (five). Only then can we anticipate the desired goal: new jobs and new money in the local economy.

The iron logic is very clear, and it’s

being implemented here.

• One piece missing from this supplement is the hops-growing and beerbrewing revival: Brewery Ommegang, Hager Hops, Butternut Brewery and the micros – Roots in Oneonta, Council Rock in Hartwick Seminary, and Tim Dobler’s coming soon to Mount Vision.

Related and similarly promising is the farm-to-table movement, seeking to serve the $1 billion in unmet need in New York City or fresh, natural foods.

These have been extensively explored in our weekly editions, with more to come.

• Progress Editions have become passé since the 2008 Great Recession, which continues to linger. But, in Otsego County, there is progress, driven by iron logic, and, in this supplement, we celebrate it – and try to explain it.

Progress, and hope. Hope for a prosperous future – for everyone.

Kevlin is editor & publisher of Hometown Oneonta, The Freeman’s Journal and www.allotsego.com

“Our objective sounds relatively simple... but it’s very complex,” says Deb Taylor, DMCOC Executive Director. “The tourism industry is so important to the local economy. We are in charge of tying together our tourism resources (lodging, restaurants, shopping, agri-tourism, recreational activities, events, etc.) under one well-rounded umbrella.”

DMCOC works closely with the county’s economic development team as well. “Tourism has a huge impact on our economy. We help attract new businesses which, in turn, bring employees and families that are here long-term. Our county has a lot to offer, we’re proud to be a big part of it!”

2015 Progress Edition

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2015 Progress Edition

PROGRESS 2015/BRANDING THE FUTURE

Otsego Now: ‘Strong, Simple Logo Has A Lot Going For It’

By LIBBY CUDMORE

T

he future of the IDA is now.

Otsego Now. “This brand is a critical component of how we perceive ourselves and what others on the outside looking in see,” said Sandy Mathes, IDA – now Otsego Now – president and IDA BRAND the county’s “single point of ADVISORY contact” on ecoCOMMITTEE nomic development.

George Allen Otsego Now Northern Eagle Beverage is the new brand Tom Armao name for the Country Club Motors Otsego County IDA, one-stop Larry Bennett shopping for Brewery Ommegang businesses lookCraig Gelbsman ing to develop First Choice Cleaners in the area.

Sherrie Kingsley Businesses will be able to Inn At Cooperstown access inforPaul Landers mation about Pathfinder Village shovel-ready Montell Marra sites, available Cooperstown Distillery workforce and details about the Susan Salton quality of life in Hartwick College towns throughJeanette Weldon out the region.

Brookwood School “It’s more than just slapScott White ping on a new Bank Of Cooperstown name,” said STAFF Dawn Rivers, a Sandy Mathes member of the Elizabeth Horvath Brand Advisory Committee and Dawn Rivers IDA office manager who will be answering the phone with “Otsego Now, how may I help you” henceforth.

“It’s representing something larger. It’s a way to engage the public.”

“The IDA didn’t have a brand or a

2015 Progress Edition

logo,” said COO Elizabeth Horvath.

“We just had a corner on the Otsego County website.”

Developing a brand began last fall, with Horvath bringing together the Brand Advisory Committee to discuss how to best communicate Otsego County’s new approach to economic development, locally and to the outside world.

The Otsego Now concept will be central to a new website, www.otsegonow.com, that will be unveiled at the end of this month, geared towards drawing potential investors as well as informing the local community. “The website is a critical marketing tool,” said Mathes. “If you don’t have a website, you won’t even make it into the game.”

At the new website, executives will be able to look at available sites, and get data on workforce, training programs and financing options.

It will also be an entry point to Otsego Now services provided from headquarters on the fifth floor of 189 Main, the Class A office building at Dietz and Main in downtown Oneonta. “We’ll do everything,” said Mathes. “We’ll coordinate the site, we’ll be your best friend in an environment that’s supportive.”

Paperkite Creative, Cooperstown, the agency behind marketing campaigns for the Oneonta Concert Association, The Otesaga and Otsego 2000, was

brought in to design the brand. “The ‘Industrial Development Agency’ name doesn’t work,” said Susan Green, Paperkite owner and creative director. “It sounds intimidating.”

Paperkite distributed questionnaires and surveys to the IDA board and the advisory committee, as well as the consulting firm’s own business contacts.

“We wanted to know what their goals were,” said Green. “We asked them what the strengths and challenges of the region were.”

Their research showed that other competing economic development agencies weren’t branding themselves.

“Having an evocative name like ‘Otsego Now’ helps us stand out,” said Green. The committee then pitched several concepts to the board, including “Prosper Otsego,” “Spark Otsego” and “Launch Otsego.”

But when they landed on “Otsego Now,” everyone at the table knew it

Please See LOGO, Page 10 The advisory committee that developed the “Otsego Now” name and associated marketing strategy are, from left, Paperkite artistic director Jennifer Tesiero, Paperkite principal Susan Green; IDA CEO Sandy Mathes, IDA COO Elizabeth Horvath, and Tom Armao, principal, Country Club Motors.

Ian Austin/Progress 2015

3

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--Ray Adee, Manager Endwell Rug has been a staple of Oneonta and the surrounding area for over 48 years. “A lot of our business is commercial, with all your flooring needs and only one thing in mind: Complete Customer Satisfaction.” Adee said. “There are many flooring store choices in Oneonta, and we appreciate our customers and do our best to serve them”.

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8 Carbon Street, Oneonta 607-432-1105 4

2015 Progress Edition

PROGRESS 2015/BROADBAND, EVERYONE?

Challenges? Broadband Contractor MidTel Knows About Overcoming Rural Obstacles is now the fast-growing field of providing rural localities first-rate access to the World Wide Web. MIDDLEBURGH When President Obama’s $700 billion American Recovery & Reinvesthat qualifies something called ment Act passed in 2009, it included the Middleburgh Telephone stimulus money for rural broadband.

Co. to install a $30 million And, as he would after Irene, Jim Beckbroadband network to bring high-speed er leaped into action as a key player in Internet to every rural nook ION – the statewide Indeand hill-sheltered cranny of pendent Optical Network, Otsego County? a consortium of indepenFirst, there’s a little dent telephone companies. something called Hurricane ION obtained $42 milIrene, which in 2011 devaslion in stimulus money, tated MidTel’s home town and Jim spent the next and much of its Schoharie three years overseeing the County service area. installation of 1,300 miles The Becker brothers, Jim of what’s called “middle and Jason, fourth generamile” cable – “local tion to operate the company, As a key player in partners provide the ‘last leaped into action, working ION, a consortium of mile,’” he said – in nine alongside their crews for 45 local phone comparts of the state and days straight – with only a panies, Jim Becker Vermont. oversaw a $42 milhalf-day off on Sundays – From Plattsburgh to and spending 2,600 hours of lion in “middle mile” Malone. From Rochester projects to bring overtime to get their cable to Houghton, Cuba, Olean to nine TV and Internet customers broadband and Jamestown. From rural areas of New back on line.

Hancock to Port Jervis York and Vermont.

Technicians, they were and into the Hudson Valalso Samaritans. “I carried ley. From Burlington, Vt., water and food in my car,” said Jason, to Middlebury, Vt. Across Lake Chamwho found himself reaching isolated plain to Crown Point. From Middlehouseholds ahead of rescue workers. burgh to Cobleskill, Cooperstown, Well before Hurricane Irene, howHamilton and Cortland. ever, MidTel’s band of brothers had “The team that built this,” Jim Beckproved themselves as pioneers in what er said, reviewing a map of the ION installations, “it’s the same team that will be building Otsego’s project.”

Reacting to what sometimes seems like universal community demand, the Otsego County Industrial Development Agency – re-christened “Otsego Now” (see article, Page 5) – contracted with Farr Technologies of Sioux Fall, S.D., last summer to explore the feasibility of providing broadband countywide.

Farr unveiled a $30 milMiddleburgh Telephone Co., hub for rural lion program last fall, and on broadband statewide, is back in renovatDec. 4, the IDA announced ed headquarters after Hurricane Irene.

By JIM KEVLIN

W

2015 Progress Edition

Jim Kevlin/Progress 2015

Brothers Jim Becker, left, and Jason Becker, fourth-generation managers of Middleburgh Telephone Co., may know how to operate one of MidTel’s original switchboards. But their technical savvy is of the 21st century variety.

Middleburgh Telephone would be the final piece of a four-part partnership to implement the plan, along with the IDA itself, the County of Otsego, and Hart-

wick-based Otsego Electric Cooperative, which would provide construction crews and ongoing maintenance.

Please See BROADBAND, Page 10

5

CommuniT it’s not complete without

There’s a little something for everyone, and a lot for your community. “i’ve been the Executive Director since 2008 and have seen many changes in the oneonta Family YmCA. We are truly committed to providing our community a place where parents and chlidren can practice a healthy lifestyle together”, Frank Russo, Executive Director, said. “one of the largest areas of growth is our collaboration with the oneonta City Parks to offer programs within the parks system and the Y’s involvement with the Cooperstown Central Schools afterschool program. Soon we’ll have afterschool programs in Delhi as well”.

The Y is the nation’s leading nonprofit committed to stengthening communities.

“Through our programs on youth development, healthy living and social responsibility, we’ve been able to serve many, many families in our community.

We welcome the economic growth that seems apparent in our community – The Y will grow along with oneonta making it an even better place to live and play!” Russo said.

Frank Russo Executive Director

ONEONTA FAMILY YMCA 20-26 FORD AVE ONEONTA NY 13820 607432 0100

www.oneontaymca.org 6

2015 Progress Edition

PROGRESS 2015/PUTTING ‘HEADS IN BEDS’ REVENUES V. MARKETING COSTS

OCCUPANCY YEAR AROUND

The left slide, from a PowerPoint Jim Miles has been presenting lately, shows bed-tax revenues rising, and the relative cost of promotion dropping. The right slide – hotel-bed occupancy – shows there’s plenty of room to grow tourism in Otsego County.

So Far, Privatizing Tourist Promotion Working, Tapping Professionals’ Expertise In Key Sector

By JIM KEVLIN COOPERSTOWN

M

anaging a luxury resort like The Otesaga is a complicated challenge. Hiring and training. Ever enhancing quality. Marketing.

Preparing for major events and conventions.

And, then, of course, the crown jewel of challenges: hosting the National Pastime’s superstar players, executives and owners over Hall of Fame Weekend.

By contrast, the single focus of Destination Marketing of Otsego County must be a welcome break for Otesaga General Manager & Vice President Jim Miles, who is also DMOC chairman.

“The single metric is: Where are we with the bed tax?” said Miles in an interview soon after the DMOC’s three-year contract with the County of Otsego completed its first year.

The short answer to that ques-

2015 Progress Edition

Jim Kevlin/Progress 2015

DMOC chairman Jim Miles describes increases in “heads in beds” in the first year of privatized tourism promotion.

tion is: Just fine.

In DMOC’s first year, county bed-tax revenues increased 10 percent, from $1.48 million to $1.62 million, or $140,000.

Since the Board of Representatives, at the end of 2014, abolished its Tourism Office and shifted the allocation for out-of-

county promotion to the DMOC, that goes right to the county’s bottom line.

Miles, then in his second year at The Otesaga’s helm, and Hall of Fame Vice President/Development Ken Meifert approached the county board’s Intergovernmental Affairs Committee in the fourth

quarter of 2013 suggesting it privatize tourism promotion.

In place of the county Tourism Office, why not give the money to professionals in the hospitality field, and take advantage of their expertise in bringing visitors here? The words, “heads in beds,” were first uttered publicly at that meeting, and soon became the mantra for the undertaking.

The county, with board chair Kathy Clark, R-Otego, taking the lead, agreed to a three-year contract with what emerged as the DMOC, to see if private enterprises could, by benefitting themselves, increase the county’s bed-tax revenues, and then benefit everyone.

The 2015 budget, similar to the 2014 one, is slightly less than $600,000, including $446,000 in bed-tax seed money, $85,000 in “partnerships” – money chipped in by the major tourism players – and $56,000 in state matching funds.

Miles says upfront that the

DESTINATION MARKETING Jim Miles Chairman The Otesaga

Bill Michaels

Vice Chairman Fly Creek Cider Mill

Ken Meifert

Treasurer Baseball Hall of Fame

Carol Blazina

Secretary Past President, Foothills

Barbara Ann Heegan Otsego County Chamber

Kathy Clark

County Board chair

Bob Holt

Best Western

Todd Kenyon NYSHA

Matt Hazzard

Cooperstown Chamber

Deb Taylor

Executive Director

Please See TOURISM, Page 12 7

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2015 Progress Edition

PROGRESS 2015/70 ACRES, RIGHT IN THE CITY

D&H Yards Has Almost Everything; Bridge Sought For Easy I-88 Access Treffeisen is a principal in River Corp., which owns 100 acres and has been seeking to more fully develop them for ONEONTA years.

The Canadian Pacific owns 400 he old D&H yards are a sleeping acres, but is in the process of selling giant. it to Norfolk Southern. “Our view is Hidden from sight by homes, that’s a positive change,” said Mathes. shrubs and trees to the south of Chest“That railroad will be more geared to nut Street, hundreds of acres – 70 growth in this corridor.” The balance is owned by Lutz Feeds, the only entity buildable, Sandy Mathes estimates now using rail to ship prod– stretch from Lutz Feed in and out. at the end of Ceperley OTSEGO NOW uct“As you drive this, you Avenue, past the so-called DIRECTORS start to get a sense of the “Chinese Wall,” all the way to Cliff Street, almost a Bob Hanft, chair magnitude of the opportunity,” said Mathes. mile and a half.

Pierstown Back at the IDA offices on “This is just sitting Jim Salisbury the fifth floor of 189 Main here. Water, sewer, power Otego St., Mathes had been outlin– it’s all here,” Mathes, ing plans for the site. the county’s “single point Len Marsh A $47,500 state economicof contact” for economic Oneonta development grant – a sodevelopment, declared called CFA – was received in Joe Bernier while touring the site the December to develop a marOneonta other day. ket survey for the site. The He eased his white SUV Jim Jordan Rochester consulting firm, off the pavement at CepRichfield Springs Clark Patterson Lee, will perley and Oneida and over the bumps and ruts of a Hugh Henderson begin work in about a month, and “a completed developlittle-used dirt road.

Oneonta ment plan” is anticipated by To the right are skeletal the end of the summer.

Jeff Lord abutments of the bridge that Oneonta Mathes sees the future of used to carry heavy truck the D&H yards as “multitraffic from the vicinity of Craig Gelbsman modal. Rail in, truck out.

River Street Extension into Oneonta Truck in, rail out.” In the the yards proper. A little vicinity of the old bridge farther along is solitary Devin Morgan abutments, he anticipates smokestack, all that’s left Cooperstown a new bridge, connecting of the D&H Roundhouse, STAFF with the River Street Extenonce the biggest of its kind sion near the Corning plant.

Sandy Mathes in the world.

“It’s important to get access President It’s spacious. It’s open.

It’s mostly clean. “WetElizabeth Horvath restored to River Street,” he said, “so we can avoid going lands are an issue, but they COO through the neighborhoods in can be remediated,” he Dawn Rivers the city.” said.

Office Manager That will be expensive, Past the roundhouse, the of course. But, with mardirt track smooths out a COUNSEL ket study in hand, Mathes bit, passing an Arc Otsego Kurt Schulte hopes to access funding from workshop. Just before FonOneonta Governor Cuomo’s recently da Avenue is A. Treffeisen Joseph Scott announced $1.5 billion Up& Son, the HVAC concern Albany state Development Fund, or housed in a low-slung modthrough the next CFA round. ern building; owner Wayne

By JIM KEVLIN

T

Jim Kevlin/Progress 2015

Sandy Mathes, Otsego Now president, tours Oneonta’s 400-acre D&H yards. He believes 70 vacant acres, served by municipal water and sewerage, and power, can be made available for economic development. The site has rail, and a bridge is being considered to provide better access to I-88.

2015 Progress Edition

9

L OGO F was the one. “It’s comfortable,” / rom Page 3

said advisory board member Tom Armao. “In marketing, you want to take up residual space in someone’s brain, and this is memorable.

It’s got urgency. Now is the present.”

Even the logo tells a story. “It’s a strong, simple logo, but it’s got a lot going on,” said Horvath. “The colors represent the land and the sky, the natural beauty of life here.

And the line goes up, like a graph on a bank, because things are looking up!”

The first goal of Otsego Now is to make believers out of the community. “We needed a new image of what economic development is,” said Mathes. “We needed a clear distinction between the past and the future of economic development in Otsego County.”

An open house is planned at Otsego Now’s office to begin expanding visibility in the community. “The county needs to believe that we can create jobs,” he said.

“We need to convince students to stay here and raise their families.”

The Workforce Training Center is the next piece of the puzzle.

“We’ll train people for the jobs we have here now and what will be here,” said Rivers. “When a company comes in, we’ll sit with them and find out what their workforce needs are, then develop and train their workforce for them.”

Otsego Now will draw the workforce from the high school and the universities, as well as community colleges in the area.

And as the shovel-ready sites – the Pony Farm Commerce Park, the D&H yards, and a third near Richfield Springs – develop Otsego Now can begin marketing the brand to outside companies at trade shows, via Google searches, and by connecting to regional economic development hubs, including Albany and the Mohawk Valley. “The sites are the missing link,” said Mathes. “We’re hoping to have some ready to go in six months.”

But whatever a company needs, Mathes is sure Otsego Now will be able to help. “We’re the coordinators,” he said. “We’ll be in the mix to discuss opportunities for economic development.”

B“Their ROADBAND F credentials, their experience, the

/ rom Page 7

breadth of the company is a testimony to the organization,” Otsego Now President Sandy Mathes said at the time MidTel was brought aboard.

The first step, the Becker brothers said in an interview in the conference room of company headquarters at Cliff Street and Wells Avenue – smartly redone in Irene’s wake – is to write the complicated applications for grants to pay the bill.

One source is a $500 million fund Governor Cuomo has established for rural broadband. Another is the U.S. Farm Bill, administered by the USDA. The Otsego project fits all the paramaters. State Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, and U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook, have lent their support. And the Beckers are confident funding will be forthcoming, perhaps this month.

Intense planning would then kick in, and the “build cycle” would occur in 2016, with contract crews from Syracuse Utilities and Todd Cable Construction of Newport, Herkimer County, appearing alongside Otsego County roads, overseen by MidTel supervisors.

The goal: Connect Otsego County, instantly, with the touch of a fingertip, to the

world by 2017.

As it enters into the brave new broadband world, MidTel brings 117 years of experience with it. The Becker brothers’ great-grandfather, E. Scott Rose, strung wire from the barn of his Hobart farm in 1898 to more easily communicate with his wife.

That grew into the Rose Telephone Co., which the family sold in 1922. Scott Rose went to work for Middleburgh Telephone.

His daughter, Marge, eventually married Randy Becker, whose family owned MidTel. The husband and wife partnered in a newsstand and snack bar, selling in 1948 and buying the phone company. Marge Becker is still company president today.

Both Jim and Jason went to Clarkson and studied engineering, graduating in the 1990s and, after working in the corporate world, answered their family’s invitation to return to MidTel. It’s been during their tenure that technology went from voice to video to broadband, with MidTel becoming the county’s main cable TV provider.

It’s been an inspiring undertaking. “The very first cable customer we installed,” Jim recalled, “she started to cry.” Until then, she’d only had access to three TV stations.

And a challenging one. “Rural broadband is hard, it’s very hard,” Jason added. “24-7, if something happens, our guys roll. But it’s what we do.”

LEAF Council on Alcoholism and Addictions is dedicated to helping create a community where children and adults can live in a healthy environment that is free from the effects of alcoholism and other addictive diseases.

LEAF

“Since 1982, LEAF has been involved in supporting members of our community with education, prevention, referral, treatment, collaboration and advocacy.

In one way or another, addictions affect everyone — personally, socially and economically,” said Julie Dostal, Executive Director. “It’s always been our mission to address addictions and to educate the community, but now it’s so much more!”

And so much more is right! LEAF is heavily involved in promoting non-alcohol events. These have become some of the most popular events in Oneonta. “We have our Tuff e Nuff mud run that will be on the Fourth of July for the third year in a row. This year will be a banner year — we’re already well ahead of registrations for this year’s run,” Dostal said.

“We also have the LEAF Annual Art & Poetry competition, we are part of the Susquehanna Balloon Festival, the Annual SADD conference, the Healthy Holidays Boys & Girls Club party and we’ve been an integral part with FIRST NIGHT ONEONTA for the Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve Festivals. Everything LEAF does in our community promotes healthy living!”

Julie Dostal Executive Director

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2015 Progress Edition

PROGRESS 2015/FROM SOUTHSIDE TO WEST END

Gene Bettiol Envisions 2 Hotels, Supermarket, More On West End Oneonta Town Supervisor Bob Wood points out features in Gene Bettiol’s plans for the corner of Oneida Street and Route 205 on Oneonta’s West End. In the background is the Hess convenience store.

By LIBBY CUDMORE WEST ONEONTA

T

he East End has Price Chopper and the world famous Brooks’ House of BBQ. Southside is abuzz with activity, with Moe’s and Asian Temptations opening just last month and construction of a Buffalo Wild Wings underway.

And now, Gene Bettiol believes, it’s time for the West End to shine. “That property” – a wedge formed

by Route 205 and Oneida Street, just north of I-88’s Exit 13 – “has been Having developed dormant for 25 Southside, Gene years,” he said.

Bettiol is looking “The West End to the West End. needs an uplift.”

With plans for two hotels, a supermarket, restaurants, shopping, banking and more, Bettiol hopes to begin an enormous new development in spring 2016 on the 13.151-acre property across from the state police barracks.

It could change the face of the West End, an oft-overlooked part of Greater Oneonta.

“It’s one of the few spots in the West End that isn’t developed,” said Bob Wood, Oneonta town supervisor. “Gene is interested in maximizing use of the space without another strip mall.”

But Bettiol’s biggest excitement is the possibility of a supermarket there.

“It’s a priority,” he said. “Oneonta only has three grocery stores, one in the East End and two on Southside – if we can get that interest activated, it will

2015 Progress Edition

Ian Austin/Progress 2015

be wonderful for the people who live there.”

The 13 buildings specified in the site plan on file in the town hall in West Oneonta also include an office building, a convenience store and, possibly, a car dealership. “There’s a market here,” said Wood.

Proximity to Cooperstown All-Star

Village is behind plans for one, possibly two, hotels. “With all the tourism and programs growing, another hotel is warranted,” said Bettiol.

He also hopes a restaurant will set up shop to cater to hungry customers coming off of I-88 in search of a bite to eat. “We want a place where travelers can come in and get breakfast,” he said.

A file in Oneonta Town Hall contains details of Bettiol’s plans.

Though it’s too early for Bettiol to discuss what companies have expressed interest in the property, several banks have already made informal inquiries.

One of the biggest challenges the lot faces is gaining access from 205 and Oneida Street. Currently, no driveways are allowed on the lot, but Wood says the town is reviewing this with the state Department of Transportation. “They haven’t reacted unfavorably,” he said.

The project has been presented to the town Planning Board, which will lead a coordinated review with the DOT, the city and other interested parties.

“We’re trying to get all our applications in,” said Bettiol. “We’re getting close, but these things take time. These things don’t sprout up in a year or two.

People sometimes forget that it took us 25 years to develop Southside.”

“If anyone can get it done,” said Wood. “It’s Gene.”

11

TOURISM /From Page 7 first-year success – at least in part – is

luck: A sterling Hall of Fame class, led

by Yankee manager Joe Torre, brought the third-largest Induction Weekend crowd on record to Cooperstown at the end of July. (I Love NY’s April 2014 ad, featuring Torre in Cooperstown, was another windfall.)

The economy generally is getting better, he continued. And there was good press: Foremost, The Today Show’s decision to broadcast live from The Otesaga on Induction Weekend.

“The Today Show was massive,” he reflected.

As he continues talking, however, it becomes clear not much has been left to chance. “We’re very focused,” said Miles. “We’re very targeted.”

To show it meant business, the DMOC board started the year by issuing an RFP – a request for proposals – from advertising agencies. In the end, Adworkshop in Lake Placid, which had served the Tourism Office, won the new contract, but the process underscored a results-orientation.

The Tourism Office’s successful “Believe It Or Not, This Is Cooperstown” theme – on its website and its

out-of-area advertising – was a halfdozen years old, and is being studied to see if a new tagline makes sense, Miles said.

That review is tied to a general intensifying in social-media promotions.

In 2014, page views at thisiscooperstown.com increased 32 percent to 2.2 million; 3,800 brochures were downloaded from the site, up 80 percent, and Facebook, Twitter and Google outreach expanded.

In the fall, an experiment was conducted to test thisiscooperstown. com’s utility. Six categories of visitors were asked to visit the web site and see if they could plan an itinerary for a two- or three-day visit. If the Hall of Fame brought them here, could arts, agri-tourism, or the Beverage Trail keep them here longer, and could they find enough things to do on thisiscooperstown.com?

Authoritative Smith Travel Research also began developing a “benchmark report” for Otsego County, determining that, while hotel rooms are almost 90 percent occupied in August, they are only 25 percent occupied in January.

If not in the dead of winter, “there is opportunity to grow in the spring in the fall,” Miles said.

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2015 Progress Edition

PROGRESS 2015/DOING MORE WITH GREAT VIEW Hartwick College uses this stunning view of the northern Catskills on much of its promotional literature. The college hopes to enhance the experience for students and visitors by turning Hartwick Drive into a pedestrian walkway.

Hartwick College To Invest $26M In Dorm Upgrades, Enhancing Pedestrian Access, New Campus Entrance

By LIBBY CUDMORE

ONEONTA

H

artwick College is famed for its beautiful view of the City of the Hills – and with the new walkway project, students, faculty and guests won’t have to worry that they might get honked at while pausing to savor the vista.

“People compete with cars,” said Margaret Drugovich, Hartwick’s president. And that’s not good.

“It’s a top priority for us that our staff, guests and students be able to relax and walk on the Hartwick Drive without having to worry about cars,” she said.

The road will soon be closed to traffic and paved as a walkway as one of the campus’ $26 million renovation projects, funded by Otsego County IDA bonds.

Additionally, a new gateway will be built off West Street to welcome visitors and students to the campus.

Renovations on all the dorms are also on the to-do list, with upgrades to heating/cooling systems, flooring and equipment.

The plan also calls for building a townhouse-style residence hall, with suite-style rooms aimed at in-

2015 Progress Edition

Ian Austin/Progress 2015

President Drugovich discusses renovations.

creasing the number of students who live on campus.

“It’s very attractive to upperclassmen,” said Drugovich. “People’s expectations have changed; they want more exclusive living spaces.”

But underclassmen in the classic dorms shouldn’t expect single rooms with private bathrooms. “Living with other people teaches you a lot,” said Drugovich. “We’re configured to help our students do that.

We’re not building a spa. It’s a reasonable approach.”

And Hartwick is continuing to work with the community in the Center for Craft Food & Beverage Center, aimed at preparing students for the growing brewing and farm-to-table sector.

“It’s our way of leveraging our intellectual capacity in the community,” said Drugovich. “It gives our students the practical experience they need and, hopefully, will entice them to stay and work in this industry, an industry we believe has a real future in this area.”

With just over a year left in the $32 million “It’s Person: A Campaign for Hartwick Students,” the college has already dedicated over $27 million to scholarships and infrastructure projects, including renovations to the Anderson Center, the Campbell Fitness center and the Stack Lounge.

“I love seeing students lounging, chatting with friends and enjoying that space,” she said. “Hartwick students are special – we want them to connect with their educators, their peers and their environment.”

She gestured out over the view from in front of Bresee Hall. “It’s been wonderful to watch it grow,” she said. “This college is important to the community, and the community is important to us.”

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Local People Bringing You Local News The only locally owned news

operation in Otsego County is staffed by, back row, from left, photographer Ian Austin, Oneonta; editor and publisher Jim Kevlin and co-publisher MJ Kevlin, Cooperstown; ad consultant Thom Rhodes, Cooperstown; graphic artist Kathleen Peters, Schuyler Lake; ad consultant Jim Koury, Oneonta. Front row, from left, are production coordinator Stephenie Walker, Cooperstown; office manager Katherine Monser, Hartwick; ad director Tara Barnwell, Cooperstown; reporter Libby Cudmore, Oneonta, and consultant Tom Heitz, Fly Creek.

Not pictured is Judith Bartow, billing, Cooperstown.

W

“ e are committed to improving the overall business climate in our area,” said Barbara Ann Heegan, President & CEO of the Otsego County Chamber of Commerce headquartered in Oneonta, N.Y. We are very forward-thinking about business and community as well as groups and institutions”.

Barbara Ann Heegan President & CEO

The Otsego County Chamber of Commerce is very active with the economic development of the county. “We work hand in hand with Otsego NOW to bring employment and quality businesses to our region. Given the news we’ve recently heard, the future looks bright for all of us in the county.

OCCC is looking forward to meeting with new businesses and partnering to create a better community. Keeping it local is key, from hiring locally and local purchasing to contracting of local services.”

TOGETHER, LET’S ALL DO OUR PART TO SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESSES!

www.otsegocc.com 14

2015 Progress Edition

PROGRESS 2015/TRAINING FUTURE EXECUTIVES

With Accredited Program Booming, SUNY Oneonta To Renovate Alumni Hall For Business, Economics

By JIM KEVLIN ONEONTA

S

ince Aug. 2, 2011, SUNY Oneonta’s business programs have been accredited by The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, a coveted honor only 5 percent of colleges can claim.

Since then, year to year, enrollment has steadily climbed the charts, from 500 to Only 5 per626 to 699 to 779. cent of Last year, the busibusiness ness programs were programs can elevated in a campusclaim AACSB accreditation, wide reorganization from a “division” into and SUNY Oneonta’s is one of five “schools,” one of them. the School of Economics & Business, under one of five deans, David C. Yen, recruited from Miami University of Ohio. “…But it doesn’t really have a home,” college President Nancy Kleniewski said in an interview the other day. “We want to make sure they have the right kind of place.”

As a college president must, Kleniewski typically thinks ahead in halfdecades and decades.

The reorganization into five schools – three of the “founding deans,” including Dr. Yen, came aboard in the fall of 2013 – occurred five years after Kleniewski arrived at the corner office on the Netzer Administration Building’s top floor. (The hiring of Provost Maria Thompson, the chief academic officer and hub of the five-spoke wheel, took four.)

So it should be no surprise that, yes, five years ago, the idea of recreating Alumni Hall – SUNY Oneonta’s first library since moving up the hill from Old Main in the 1960s – as home to the School of Economics & Business.

So in 2010, when the Facilities

2015 Progress Edition

Jim Kevlin/Progress 2015

Dr. David Yen, founding dean of the School of Economics & Business, is looking forward to better preparing undergrads with a life-like Wall Street training room and a mock court in the renovated Alumni Hall.

Master Plan was being updated, a new home for Business & Economics surfaced as “a marquee project for us,” said to Todd Foreman, vice president for Finance & Administration.

The need is clearly evident on a visit to Dr. Yen’s second-floor office at the Netzer, at the end of a narrow hallway where the dozen-plus faculty members – in accounting, economics, marketing, information services – are shoehorned, two to an office, separated by stuffed bookcases stacked to the ceiling.

When Yen starts reflecting on his “wish list” on what awaits in Alumni Hall – he’s thinking ahead three years, to the fall of 2018, if all goes as planned – a gleam appears in his eye.

One, instead of the cramped conference room next door, he envisions “case study rooms” – a small one for 3-4, a bigger one for 7-8 – where future businesspeople work in collaborative groups. He speaks, mantra-like, of “student engagement, student participation, student involvement.”

Two, instead of a dated trading room off-site, Yen, in his mind’s eye, sees the replica of a financial trading room you might find on Wall Street, where student brokers are practicing trades they will soon be making in the real world.

(Kleniewski is particularly intrigued by the anticipated “Bloomberg Terminals” – source of former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s fortune – that allow monitoring and analysis of real-

time financial data, an electronic trading platform and access to proprietary news and price quotes.)

Three, a mock courtroom, where students can experience the push and pull of business law in action, “improving their oral and debating skills,” Yen said.

Four, a “sandbox,” where future business people can “play” with the technology they will be using in the real world. (And it’s not just for undergrads. Said Yen, “before I teach a student, I should learn it myself.”

Five, a “service-oriented center,” where business students can be advised on career options, identify internships and, as graduation looms, get help finding jobs.

Across campus in his West Street headquarters, Tom Rathbone, associate vice president of facilities & safety, furrows his brow as he contemplates the “Rubik’s Cube” he must solve to get from here to there.

In 1973, the spacious and modern Milne Library opened, and everyone who needed space leaped to claim the vacated space. Today, Alumni Hall hosts admissions, the campus police, the alumni office and radio station WONY. Plans are fairly settled on construction of a “welcome center” in the next year or so in the neighborhood of the Hunt Union, where admissions will receive a friendlier face.

Please See SUNY, Page 16 Originally SUNY Oneonta’s library, Alumni Hall will be redone for the new School of Business & Economics, perhaps by 2018.

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PROGRESS 2015/WELCOMING PEOPLE HERE

Destination Oneonta Plans Welcome Center To Connect Visiting Tourists, City Highlights

By LIBBY CUDMORE ONEONTA

T

here’s so much more to Oneonta than Main Street. “Main Street Oneonta had lost its identity,” said Tim Masterjohn, Destination Oneonta president, the rebranded version of MSO (for Main Street Oneonta).

“Oneonta is downtown, it’s the city, the town, everything.”

The non-profit D-O, founded in 2011, aims to promote Greater Oneonta restaurants, hotels and shopping.

“We want feet on the street, heads in the bed and dollars in the register,” said Masterjohn. “We want people to see Oneonta as a destination is an effort to increase tourism.”

“We have everything here,” he continued. “There’s arts and nightlife, recreational activities like hiking and biking, a historic downtown and two universities.”

Along with the new name, Destination Oneonta has two new initiatives for the summer. The first, a website, will invite users to see what Oneonta has to offer. “People will be able to buy tickets to events, see restaurants where they want to eat and hotels they want to stay at,” said Julia Goff, D-O executive director.

Interested businesses can

Jim Kevlin/Progress 2015

President Kleniewski discusses Alumni Hall plans with Carolyn Lewis, her economic development coordinator.

SUNY /From Page 15 Foreman had mentioned fund-

Ian Austin/Progress 2015

Destination Oneonta President Tim Masterjohn discusses the layout of DO’s “Welcome Center,” which will open May 1 during downtown’s first “Fabulous First Friday” of the 2015 season.

also buy Destination Oneonta memberships, which include a listing and link on the website. “It’s not just opened to downtown merchants,” said Goff. “It’s for any business in Oneonta.”

“We’ve really opened the door for everyone,” said Masterjohn. “Even people who didn’t think they had the opportunity to be a part of this.”

The second is a welcome center at 2 Dietz St., across from the Oneonta History Center. “There’s no resource for people who find themselves in Oneonta and ask, ‘Now what do we do?’”

The staffed Welcome Center – opening May 1, the first “Fabulous First Friday” celebration of the year DO’s Goff – will have promotional brochures, tickets and discount coupons to attractions like the Butterfly Conservatory and Foothills Performing Arts and a private boardroom for members to host meetings.

But even those who’ve

lived in Oneonta their whole lives are welcome to stop by and see what else their town has to offer. “It’s open to visitors, residents, anyone,” said Goff.

But more than just shopping and dining, Destination Oneonta seeks to preserve the charm downtown. “We want to continue beautification projects,” said Masterjohn. “We want to preserve the charm and character of downtown, with events and holiday parades. We want to make Oneonta an appealing place for residents, students and people looking to relocate.”

FRONT COVER: In the center, the new Otsego Now logo. Clockwise from upper right, Otsego Now’s CEO Sandy Mathes points out where a new bridge is planned in the D&H yards; Richfield Town Supervisor Fran Enjem listens to Elan Planning’s Lisa Nagle on comprehensive plans; SUNY Oneonta Associate Vice President Tom Rathbone looks over the facility master plan’s timeline, and Oneonta Town Supervisor Bob Wood examines Gene Bettiol’s West End plans.

16

ing is now being sought for a stand-alone campus-police building, designed to accommodate not just law-enforcement functions, but the Otsego County Law Enforcement Academy.

If that goes as hoped, Rathbone’s crews, perhaps in the summer of 2018, will be gutting Alumni, installing new windows, HVAC, wiring sufficient to the demands of modern technology, upgrading the “Little Theater” just off the front lobby, and generally turning a 1960s shell into a 21st-century facility.

“It’s not unusual for a concept to take 10 years to plan, fund, design and build,” said Rathbone the Facility Master Plan’s rollout.

Carolyn Lewis, Kleniewski’s economic-development coordinator, sees the expanding business department as a win-win, for SUNY students and the Mohawk Valley Economic Development Region, particularly in the finance and industry sector She ticks off the statistics: In 2013, the region hosted 623 establishments in that sector, employing almost 10,000 people and paying more than a half-billion in wages averaging $55,000.

The enhanced department creates “a real world opportunity,” she said.

2015 Progress Edition