COLUMN FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE Angst At Age 15 By JIM ATWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Last time we talked, I described the start of a major teenage crisis: when I knocked a nun flat on on her face, and then sat on her. To summarize: During halftime of our high school’s basketball team, I was selling candy and gum in the hallway just outside the gym to raise money for new uniforms. I was sitting on the edge of rickety…
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Columns - Page 90
ISSUE & DEBATE Martini: County Manager Will Save Much Wasted Time Editor’s Note: This commentary from County Representative Martini was in response to County Representative Frazier. By ADRIENNE MARTINI • County Representative City of Oneonta I am about to complete my first term on the Otsego County Board of Representatives as the District 12 representative for Wards 3 and 4 in the City of Oneonta. A few weeks ago, I was re-elected and will serve a second two-year term. Like my…
COLUMN WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER Disunity Is As American As Cherry Vs. Apple Pie By LARRY BENNETT • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com The press says we live in an era of unprecedented political division. The amplification of every tweet may make it seem so, but there is a different view of the severity of our polarization. The American Revolution saw Loyalists interested in compromises to prevent war, but colonists seeking independence who were not. Anyone trying to effect compromise or…
COLUMN ‘Love Unknown’ Travisano’s Elizabeth Bishop Biography Is Pinnacle Of 45 Years Of Scholarship By ROBERT BENSEN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com ONEONTA – Randall Jarrell (a friend of Elizabeth Bishop) said that a poet is one who, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, manages to get struck by lightning six or seven times. It doesn’t work that way. And don’t try it at home. And don’t let your kids try it either. But Jarrell’s outlandish savvy underscores one…
COLUMN THE VIEW FROM WEST DAVENPORT The Haves And The Have Nots Possibly the most important outcome of the recent meeting to discuss the future of the Schenevus Central School District is a quote from the superintendent: “The District’s revenues are inflexible.” She went on to say, “the District does not have property wealth or the income wealth to raise taxes enough to cover the deficit.” Finally someone in a position of authority has admitted the truth! We live in…
Column ONEONTA MAY BE AHEAD OF CURVE In Our Brave New World, No Parking Lots Needed! Editor’s Note: In sending this along, Oneonta’s Laurie Zimniewicz observed, “Based on these predictions, Oneonta is ahead of the curve regarding the parking spaces at the Dietz Street lot,” focus of a public debate on whether 80 parking spaces should be given up to allow construction of the Lofts on Dietz, 64 artists’ lofts and studios, and middle-income apartments. Auto repair shops will go…
ISSUE & DEBATE Frazier: County Manager Job Won’t Pay For Itself Editor’s Note: Mr. Frazier’s letter arrived after this week’s editions of Hometown Oneonta & The Freeman’s Journal had gone to press, and is published here so the public may review it before the first information meeting on the county manager position, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. this Thursday, Nov. 14, at Oneonta City Hall. A second is planned at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 19, at the county courthouse…
We’re All In This Together Spend Money To Fight Internal Threat: Bad Health Government exists to protect a self-defined group – a tribe – from outside existential threats. Long ago the threat was other tribes. Today it includes fire, crime, disease, drunken drivers, natural disasters and more. But government’s first reason is to protect us from them – to ensure that which our tribe holds dear is successfully defended. Be that property, principles or our basic human right to exist.…
A Front Porch Perspective My Right Leg Has Always Had Bad Karma I’ve been on the porch this afternoon, enjoying one of the last days of sitting out there. A windy Halloween’s just past, and Delaware Street is full of fresh-fallen leaves spinning in whirlwind gusts of chill air from the northwest. Above me are repeated flights of honking geese, hell bent for the South and warmer climes. My right leg’s propped on a second chair. Right foot and calf…
LEAGUE OF WOMAN VOTERS SAYS: 5¢ Fee Will Reduce Solid Waste, Pollution Editor’s Note: This position paper was prepared by Liane Hirabayashi and Julie Sorensen, co-presidents, League of Women Voters of the Cooperstown Area and Steve Londner, Chair, Steering Committee, League of Women Voters of the Oneonta Area. “No, I brought my own bag,” many shoppers are telling store clerks when asked “Do you need a bag?” And more shoppers will be giving the same reply starting in March 2020…
