75 Challenge Post Office Plans

To Cut Service To Gilbertsville

By TERESA WINCHESTER • allotsego.com

GILBERTSVILLE –  The noon whistle blew today.  The natives, numbering some 75 souls, were restless and a chain reaction of barking dogs, also in attendance, was set off as David Clark, manager of post office operations for all zip codes in 137-138 range, opened the meeting, originally scheduled for the minuscule lobby of the history-rich Gilbertsville Post Office but moved impromptu to the great outdoors due to the high turnout.

“This is an overwhelming turnout compared to other communities,” he said.  “I rarely have more than three or four people show up.”

Gilbertsville, once again, was proving its strong community spirit, as when it bucked continuous threats from the Army Corps of Engineers to build a dam by flooding portions of the town’s prime farmland and obliterating the village.  The residents eventually pursued deauthorization of the entire Upper Susquehanna Rivershed Dam Project.

Likewise, it resisted a plan to widen and “improve” New York State Route 51, which would have straightened curves, flattened rises, cut through farms, homes, barns, bridges, and cemeteries. Most recently, in 2013, before the New York State Court of Appeals ratified the concept of home rule regarding fracking, Gilbertsville, via the town of Butternuts, passed a ban on fracking.