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Volume 210, No. 9
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Cooperstown’s Newspaper
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For 209 Years
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Cooperstown, New York, Thursday, March 2, 2017
COOPERSTOWN AND AROUND
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CLARK’S 3 NOMINEES TAKE HOLD
Otsego Now Looks At Full-Time CEO The Freeman’s Journal
Nick Clark, a member of the Wounded Warrior Softball Team, introduces himself to the Cooperstown Village Board Monday, Feb. 27, told him he is moving his family to the village and will play at Doubleday Field Memorial Day Weekend with a visiting team.
Mayors Say, Act To Keep Mathes
WILD WEEKEND STORM FLOODS ANIMAL SHELTER
By JIM KEVLIN
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he Otsego Now Board of Directors, by a 5-2 vote (with two absences), has adopted a “charter” for its new Reorganization Committee that includes the line, “engage in a search and hire a fulltime CEO.” The directors acted over The Freeman’s Journal COOPERSTOWN the objections Sandy Mathes, Otsego of their forNow then-chair Bob he Village Board mer chairman, Hanft confer in 2015. unanimously passed Bob Hanft, the an ordinance Monday, retired J.P. Morgan vice president and past Feb. 27, waiving the resichair of the Hartwick College trustees, who dency requirement for Teri said the action will slow Otsego Now’s Barown for her tenure as positive momentum. “I think it does more village administrator. harm than good,” he said. Barown, who lives in When the issue arose at the board’s Hartwick, was appointed monthly meeting Feb. 23 at Otsego Now’s last September to her curPlease See OTSEGO NOW, A3 rent position which, under the Village Charter, required her to live in the village. INSIDE:
Manager’s Residence Is Waived
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CLANCY TO RETIRE: Also Monday, Brian Clancy, the village’s superintendent of public works, announced he will retire on April 28 after 31 years will the village. SINGERS SOUGHT: Glimmerglass Festival audition of singers, age 8 to 19, for this year’s productions are March 4 and 5 at the rehearsal hall at 4152 Route 20 in Warren. See www. glimmerglass.org/auditions. CURTAIN DROPS: Carmela Marner, well-known to Cooperstonians for 20 years as Franklin Stage executive and artistic director, announced Tuesday, Feb. 28, she is stepping down .
►County Board of Representatives surprised at news/A3 ►Three years of progress revisited/A3 ►Editorial: Otsego County – Blight or Beauty?/A4
Ian Austin/The Freeman’s Journal
Gaylord Dillingham, president of the Susquehanna Animal Shelter, pets Cammie, safe in the arms of Terra Butler. Stacie Haynes, executive director, also gives a nuzzle.
It Rained On Cats And Dogs By LIBBY CUDMORE HARTWICK SEMINARY
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here were wet paws and ruined bedding, but everyone was safe after
the Susquehanna Animal Shelter isolation building was flooded by rainstorms on Saturday, Feb. 25. “These swells can happen so fast,” said Stacie Haynes, SAS executive director. “We have to really keep an eye on it.”
As flash flood warnings were declared around the county, Terra Butler, animal care technician, kept an eye on Oaks Creek outside the shelter. “I left at 5 and everything looked okay, but I asked people to drive by and call Please See RAINS, A6
As Rallies Raged, Faso Tradition Blooms At Mohican Flowers Editor’s Note: This is the second of eight profiles of Had 50 Small Meetings the first inductees into the Cooperstown Chamber of By JIM KEVLIN
W
hile anti-Trump activists were rallying across the 19th Congressional District, John Faso was meeting with a table-full of citizens at the Miss Monticello Diner in
Sullivan County. In fact, he reported Monday, Feb. 27, back in Washington D.C. after the stormy Congressional recess ended, that he’d held 50 such meetings – small, conversational, informationrich, he said – from the Please See FASO, A7
Carol B. Waller is the second-generation owner of Cooperstown’s Mohican Flowers.
Commerce’s Hall of Fame. By LIBBY CUDMORE COOPERSTOWN
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t was almost by chance that Carol Waller’s family came to own Mohican Flowers. The Freeman’s Journal
“In 1971, my dad, Charles Bateman, wanted to buy a business in Cooperstown, and the only two available were Michaels’ Meat Please See WALLER, A6
THE FREEMAN’S JOURNAL & HOMETOWN ONEONTA, OTSEGO COUNTY’S LARGEST PRINT CIRCULATION 2010 WINNERS OF The Otsego County Chamber/KEY BANK SMALL BUSINESS AWARD