Editorial, July 13, 2018 Let Young Entrepreneur Bring Nick’s Diner Back To Life Here’s the choice: The nearly complete restoration of Oneonta’s historic Nick’s Diner can go forward, with better than even chances it will succeed. Or, almost complete, it can be allowed to remain vacant, eventually deteriorating to the point it will be razed or removed. It is hoped it will be in much better hands this time around. A failure to keep track of finances and track expenditure…
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Editorial - Page 36
Editorial, July 6, 2018 Homer Osterhoudt, Citizen A Life Of Service, Leadership, Joy Is An Example To Us All Interviewed as his 100th birthday last January, Homer Osterhoudt remained full of life and curiosity, enthusiastically reporting deer peering in the window of his Woodside Hall room most evenings. His back, which had carried Cooperstown’s mail on a 10-mile route daily for many of his 34 years at the Cooperstown post office, had begun to bend, but he was as warm…
Editorial, June 29, 2018 Focus Indictments Put All Nursing-Home Operators On Notice Now we know, lives indeed may be at stake. Two top executives of Focus Ventures have been arrested on eight counts involving two residents of the county’s former nursing home, Otsego Manor. (The county sold the Manor to Focus in January 2014, for $18.5 million, and Centers Health Care bought it from Focus in January for an undisclosed sum.) Five of the counts are “endangering the welfare of…
Editorial, June 22, 2018 In 40 Visits, Brian Flynn Earns Democrats’ Support If for nothing more than the knowledge he’s gained about Otsego County and its issues in 40-some visits over the past year, Brian Flynn is the logical candidate for local Democrats to support in the party’s 19th Congressional District primary Tuesday, June 26. The polls will be open from noon to 9 p.m. Absent someone actually from Otsego County – Cooperstown’s Erin Collier was an attractive entry, but…
Editorial, June 15, 2018 ISN’T IT TIME FOR A CHANGE? Elect Len Carson County Sheriff. Able, Proven Public Servant Would Change Conversation When you think about it, with the amount of baggage both Republican and Democratic designees for county sheriff are carrying, 2018 would be a great opportunity for a third person to run as an independent. You may have a favorite candidate of your own, but how about someone like Len Carson, the Oneonta Republican who narrowly lost reelection…
Editorial, June 8, 2018 Amy Schumer Proves It Cooperstown-Oneonta Market CAN Support Top Acts. Study Should Underscore That Amy Schumer’s almost-instantaneous sellout performance Tuesday, May 29, at Oneonta’s Foothills Performance Arts Center proves it: There is a demand for top-rated entertainment in Otsego County. The remaining question: What’s the price point? As Schumer proved, $20 – a true bargain – is fine. So is probably $30. Maybe $40. Certainly, at $50 a seat there will probably be some audience erosion,…
Editorial, May 31, 2018 While Security Challenges Grow, So Does High-Tech Ten years ago, we might have said, if high-tech can’t solve security problems, its future is limited. Today, high-tech is the King Kong that dominates everyone, and is likely to do so for the foreseeable future. That doesn’t mean security problems have gone away. If anything, they are more daunting and they are inescapable.…
Editorial, May 25, 2018 Who’ll Protect Us From Centers? News that Centers Health Care has raised the private-payer rate at the former county-owned Otsego Manor from $300 to $510 a day – $186,000 a year, the state’s highest – is almost too sad to contemplate. Gary Koutnik, county board vice chairman and chair of the board’s Human Service Committee, reacted with the standard response: Since the once-excellent facility is privatized, what happens at Centers, nee Focus, is no longer the…
Editorial, May 25, 2018 Hail Doubleday! Historic Ballfield To Be Reinvented For 21st Century Fans’ Needs Too much discussion about Doubleday Field in recent years has centered on how it was once considered the Birthplace of Baseball, and now isn’t. That’s not a productive conversation. Let’s stipulate that boys played baseball in Phinney’s Field in the mid-1800s, as boys did across the country. Let’s stipulate that Abner Doubleday was at West Point in 1839, when he purportedly invented baseball here.…
Editorial, May 11, 2018 WERTENBAKER LAND TRUST PRESIDENT The Right Leader, At The Right Time? People generally recognize Otsego County’s geographic schizophrenia. (Schizophrenic, in the best possible way, of course.) To the south, there are 10 Interstate exits – 11 if you count Sidney’s – largely undeveloped (except Exits 14-15, at Southside Oneonta), ideal for commerce, manufacturing, distribution and other job-creating uses. To the north is the pristine Glimmerglass watershed, a national environmental icon, surrounded by pretty hamlets and villages,…