Bound Volumes, Hometown History

October 10, 2024

70 YEARS AGO

October 1954

50 YEARS AGO

Oneonta’s police force may be getting its first women officers soon. City personnel technician John Insetta said yesterday that six women are among 73 applicants for positions at the police department. Civil Service examinations will be administered on November 9. There are presently two vacancies on the force. This is the largest group of applicants that the city has ever had for a vacancy in the department, Insetta said. Insetta attributes the increase to pay raises the city agreed to in the recent contract signed by city officials with the Oneonta Police Benevolent Association. This is the first time women have ever applied for positions in the department. The terminology has changed as a result. The positions are listed for “police officers” rather than “patrolman.” It sounds better than “Police Person,” Insetta said.

October 1974

40 YEARS AGO

A federal judge Tuesday struck down as discriminatory a section of the NYS Constitution which allows election boards to ask students to go to extra lengths to register to vote in the locales where they attend school. “Section 5-104 of the NYS Election Law and Article 2, Section 4 of the NYS Constitution are unconstitutional on their face,” U.S. District Judge Neal P. McCurn said. Eve Brown, an Oneonta State College student association delegate who has been active in election reform efforts, applauded the statewide ruling. “It’s about time that every student in the state was granted their rights as an American citizen – the right to vote. Students may now challenge the districting in the city of Oneonta which divides the two colleges among six wards, Brown said.

October 1984

30 YEARS AGO

A $150,000 grant should help the city make improvements to Damaschke Field, home of the Oneonta Yankees. City engineering administrator Joseph Bernier said Oneonta has been given preliminary approval for a state grant to help meet the cost of $335,000 in renovations and improvements to the baseball field and facilities in Neahwa Park. Some $40,000 from the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation has already been spent on infield improvements.

October 1994

20 YEARS AGO

Faced with a harshly critical new report, President Bush conceded that Iraq did not have the stockpiles of banned weapons he had warned of before the invasion last year, but the president insisted that “we were right to take action” against Saddam Hussein. “America is safer with Saddam Hussein in prison,” Bush said. “Much of the accumulated body of our intelligence was wrong,” the president admitted, “and we must find out why,” he added. However, President Bush still maintains that the former Iraqi dictator retained the “means and the intent” to produce weapons of mass destruction.

October 2004