VIEW FROM FLY CREEK Refocus $500M From Pipelines To Renewables By ADRIAN KUZMINSKI • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com I attended a hearing recently in Binghamton on rate increases proposed by NYSEG for a number of projects, including a nearly three-fold expansion in the capacity of the DeRuyter gas pipeline serving Oneonta. The hearing was run by the Public Service Commission (PSC), a New York State agency which is supposed to regulate utilities like NYSEG. The atmosphere wasn’t very promising. The deserted…
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Columns - Page 102
FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE But What’s Her Name? By JIM ATWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com I’m at ease on my front porch on a beautiful afternoon, admiring the perspective up tree-lined Delaware Avenue. As the long last block heads toward Chestnut Street, curbs and sidewalks seem to draw together, trees conspire more closely over the street, and the two rows of handsome house fronts, bedecked with flags and hanging planters, draw closer till the last ones opposite each other almost block…
VIEW FROM ALBANY A Little Here, A Little There. Suddenly, It’s Many Millions By State Sen. JIM SEWARD • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Death by a thousand cuts. Nickel and dime. If those adages come to mind when you think of New York State government, you are not alone. Now the latest example: the governor’s push to require millions of drivers to buy new license plates, needed or not. Recently, the governor’s office launched a statewide survey to select a new…
COLUMN Some Indicators Suggest Recession Not Looming By TOM MORGAN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Are we staring at a recession? You have surely seen or heard reports, opinion and speculation to that effect. Gloom has been a mini-rage lately. A few questions are in order. Are economists able to accurately predict recessions? No. If their accuracy percentages were batting averages you would bench them. Why is the subject of recessions in the air so much lately? The Left salivates at…
COLUMN Questions Are Neutral. Answers, Not So Much By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Asking questions: It’s a method of teaching that goes back to earlier than 399 B.C. and Socrates, the seminal thinker who laid the foundation for much subsequent Western thought. Hence, the Socratic Method. The idea is that a question, in itself, is neutral; at worst – or best? – a provocation to think. It’s the resulting answers to the question that aren’t neutral. The hope…
COLUMN VIEW FROM FLY CREEK On Flying The Flag By ADRIAN KUZMINSKI • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com The other day I was chatting with a long-time local business man in Cooperstown who occasionally reads this column. He brought up the recent decision of the Village of Cooperstown to officially fly the Gay Pride flag on Village property. He expressed discomfort with at least some aspects of gay lifestyle, and clearly felt that the village action did not represent him and, by…
COLUMN ALBANY ON THE MARCH With Domestic Terrorism Act, New York State Leads Nation Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Governor Cuomo’s Thursday, Aug. 14, speech to the New York City Bar Association, where he proposed the nation’s first Hate Crimes Domestic Terrorism Act. We must begin by recognizing the crisis for what it is because you will never solve a problem in life you are unwilling to admit, and today New York State acknowledges the ugly truth: that…
Salute To Service As $9.1M Project Begins, Village Thanks Ted Peters Editor’s Note: The guest of honor at the Friday, Aug. 16, groundbreaking on the Village of Cooperstown’s $9.1 million water treatment plant project was Ted Peters, retired Bassett Hospital researcher and longtime chair of the village’s sewer and water boards. A plaque honoring him will be placed on the expanded building. Here are Mayor Ellen Tillapaugh Kuch’s words of tribute. By ELLEN TILLAPAUGH KUCH • Mayor of Cooperstown Many…
COLUMN THE VIEW FROM ALBANY Democrats Bottle Up Bill To Discourage Attacks On Officers By State Sen. JIM SEWARD • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Police, firefighters, and emergency first responders are vital to public safety. The brave men and women who work in these fields put the lives of others first and often risk their own well-being. I am appalled by recent incidents in New York City of individuals hurling buckets of water at on-duty police officers. Video of these abuses…
COLUMN THE FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE The Newspaper Roundabout By JIM ATWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com I’m at a loss to find a good simile for my Cooperstown newspaper career. It’s been a bit like a ping-pong game, but played like a flow of molasses. OK, forget figures of speech: Way back in the early ’90s, when I first moved north from Maryland, the redoubtable Lidie Mackie retired from her weekly Freeman’s Journal column about Fly Creek. She urged me to…