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Paid Parking Back In Force This Weekend COOPERSTOWN
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t’s that time of year: Get your paid-parking permit or risk a $35 fine when parking in downtown Cooperstown, beginning Memorial Day. Permits are $25 for a family’s first car, $15 fo additional permits, available at the Village Office at 22 Main, or through the village website, www.cooperstownny.org RENTALS ON HOLD: Meeting Monday, May 22, the Village Board, 6-0, with one trustee absent, approved a nine-month moratorium on short-term tourist rentals. Mayor Jeff Katz is aiming to have revisions for public review in 3-4 months. HONORING SERVICE:
The annual Memorial Day commemoration begins at 11 a.m. Monday, May 29, with a parade from the Cooperstown Vets’ Club to the Soldiers & Sailors Monument in front of the County Office Building.
Newsstand Price $1 Pastor Sylvia Barrett looks forward to the future of the Milford United Methodist Church. The ruins were demolished less than 24 hours after this photo was taken. Photos at
Milford Worshipers, Plus Church Bell, Rise From Rubble Of Burned Building MILFORD
The Freeman’s Journal
For 209 Years
WWW.ALLOTSEGO.COM
Cooperstown, New York, Thursday, May 25, 2017
By LIBBY CUDMORE
The county board’s former legendary chairman, Carl Higgins of Edmeston, gives Otsego County Historical Association President Deb Mackenzie, Hartwick, a congratulatory hug at the Saturday, May 20, unveiling of a historical marker near the gravesite of Cato Freedom, a former slave who farmed in Town of Burlington/MORE, A4
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COOPERSTOWN AND AROUND
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VETERANS TAKE CENTER STAGE ON MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND/B1
ith three final peals that echoed across the valley, the bell from the Milford United
Methodist Church Church tower came down Monday, May 22, as the demolition of the church neared completion. “Our responsibility now is to look forward and find God’s will for our congregation,” said the Rev. Sylvia Barrett, pastor. Please See CHURCH, A7
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Ian Austin/The Freeman’s Journal
Compressed-Gas Trucks Reportedly Multiplying Land Trust New Exec: Pat Szarpa
SURVIVORS FIND FELLOWSHIP IN RELAY FOR LIFE
By JIM KEVLIN
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By LIBBY CUDMORE COOPERSTOWN
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or Pat Szarpa, checking bluebird boxes at the Otsego Land Trust’s Parslow Pat Szarpa Road site is the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon. “I love to open them up and see who’s inside,” she said. “I opened one box, and a little mouse looked up at me!” Szarpa, the former ChamPlease See SZARPA, A6
Many More Are Seen On Rts. 205, 80
Jim Kevlin/The Freeman’s Journal
Cooperstown’s Art Boden, popular manager of New York Pizza, comforts stepdaughter Brianna Brass and son Daniel after the Saturday, May 20, Otsego County Relay for Life at Milford’s Wilber Park, where Art delivered the keynote address. Though attendance was down to 100 from 165 last year, spirits were high and $50,642.55 was raised.
f you’ve see those trucks marked “XNG, Express Natural Gas,” plying up and down certain Otsego County roadways in recent weeks, you’re not alone. Residents along a north-south corridor, some sensitized by resistance to expanding the “natural gas infrastructure,” have noticed the proliferation, and are estimating as few as two trucks an hour each way, to as many as eight an hour, 24 hours a day, 200 in all daily, are on local roads. The northern terminus of this traffic is a compressed natural gas (CNG) terminal in Manheim, north of Please See CNG, A3
For 100 Years, Catholic Charities Has Served The Needy Aaron Macken thanks Catholic Charities’ Ameen Aswad, a Cooperstown resident, for helping him get back in the mainstream.
Saved, Beneficiary To Testify At 3-County Centennial Banquet BY LIBBY CUDMORE
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aron Macken walked through the doors of Catholic Charities, and his life has never been the same. One year, nine months ago, “I had just gotten out of jail and I needed help getting food,” he Ian Austin/The Freeman’s Journal
said. “I came into Catholic Charities and met Ameen Aswad. He helped me get food and toiletries, connected me with parenting classes,
helped me get into housing. He really mentored me.” Macken, a graduate of the Otsego County Drug Court and sober for a year and nine months, will speak on the local impact of the organization Wednesday, May 31, at Catholic Charities’ 100th anniversary Please See 100TH, A7
THE FREEMAN’S JOURNAL & HOMETOWN ONEONTA, OTSEGO COUNTY’S LARGEST PRINT CIRCULATION 2010 WINNERS OF The Otsego County Chamber/KEY BANK SMALL BUSINESS AWARD