2 College Presidents Invited
To Forum On OH! Fest Issues
By LIBBY CUDMORE • allotsego.com
Drugovich
Kleniewski
ONEONTA – The two college presidents, SUNY Oneonta’s Nancy Kleniewski and Hartwick’s Margaret Drugovich, have been invited to Tuesday’s Common Council meeting to discuss the rowdiness at the end of last year’s OH Fest by students heading back to campus from Neahwa Park.
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The day-long event, sponsored by both colleges and the city – the next would be the 10th – features an afternoon street fair with food, vendors and rides on Main Street, with a free Neahwa Park concert in the evening. Last year, the concert featured The Ready Set and Outasight.
But when the last note sounded, problems began, with a thousand SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College students heading back to campus, some tipsy, some loud, some blocking traffic and slapping cars. “This is what we deal with,” said Police Chief Dennis Nayor. “They have no regard for this community.”
“Our concern is with the security of the people who live in these neighborhoods and pay taxes,” said Mayor Dick Miller. “We shouldn’t wait to discuss this until the last possible moment.”
Common Council is in charge of issuing permits for both the closure of Main Street for the fair, and for use of the park for the concert. Though both Nayor and Miller agreed that the fair has never had any issues, as the hours get later and students consume more alcohol, complaints come in from the neighborhoods the students walk through to get home. “That dynamic is a recipe for problems,” said Nayor.
In past years, the colleges and the city have collaborated on security, but with last year’s 90 calls and nine arrests, Miller and Nayor are concerned that the city police are stretched too thin. “Any deployment in the park takes the police of the neighborhoods of the people they need to help,” said Miller.
One solution, Miller has suggested, is to require the colleges to provide private security at the evening event, freeing up the city police to answer neighborhood calls. “We need to protect the people who live in these neighborhoods and pay taxes,” said Miller.
For Nayor, making the concert a more family-friendly and community-oriented event would change the dynamic. “It would be nice to bring the community and the college together,” he said. “That could be addressed by changing the time of day, the venue and the choice of performers.”
By contrast to the 90 arrests at last year’s O-Fest concert, there were no arrests at Aug. 24’s Three Dog Night concert at Neahwa Park. A typical summer weekend in Oneonta may have 74 calls, mostly traffic stops, although the July 4th weekend saw 106 calls, many of them at DWI checkpoints set up throughout the county.
Brzozowski says that his daughter Elaina attended last year’s OH Fest concert and reported having a good time, and that the opening acts generally do attract community members. “There’s always a mixed crowd,” he said. “The Michael Jackson tribute, the Queen tribute that they’ve had in the last few years has a broad appeal.”
Later acts, including singer-songwriter The Ready Set and hip-hop artist Outasight, however, were more geared towards college students.
In addition to the two presidents, Miller invited the vice presidents of student life and heads of security, as well as students, to discuss the issue at the common council meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 16
But ultimately, Common Council has to weigh the risks and benefits of the concert before it decides what to do. “If there was no concert, would they even put on the festival downtown?” Miller asked. “I don’t know.”
With the 10th anniversary upcoming, Brzozowski hopes the city keeps with tradition. “Hopefully we can find out a way to work out both events.”
