Column by Adrian Kuzminski, May 5, 2018 More Gas? Only If Paired With Equal-Sized Renewable Project When fracking was proposed in New York State a decade ago, the potential benefits were jobs, economic growth, lower energy prices, and energy security. Opponents (like me) worried not only about local degradation of the environment but about the global consequences of methane seepage and emissions for the climate as a whole. In most places outside of New York State, the frackers won the…
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Opinion - Page 249
Editorial, May 5, 2018 It’s Decision Time. But Is There The Will? Question: Can Oneonta Mayor Gary Herzig’s administration make tough decisions? For one thing, whether or not to condemn the Twelve Tribes’ blighted Oneonta Ford property has been hanging fire since before Herzig took office. He’s now in his second term. There is state money in hand to demolish what is a public hazard and state money to prepare the site for new construction. All that’s hanging fire is…
Editorial, May 5, 2018 If We Want Solar Energy, Let’s Get Serious About It If we care about solar energy, it’s time to get serious about it, don’cha think? Happily, Otsego 2000 may be doing just that, having taken a leadership role among local environmental groups on this matter. On Feb. 24, its board adopted a resolution that reads, in part: “Climate change, driven in large party by fossil-fuel use, is a significant threat to our region and way of…
Column by Mike Zagata, April 27, 2018 Christians Told: Help The Poor, But Resist Continental Pipeline Each week while attending church, a member of the clergy reminds us of our responsibility to assist the poor. Doing so is important and something engrained in us by our parents. It is especially important in this area because we are part of Appalachia, a region known for its poverty. Indeed, according to Catholic Charity’s definition of poverty, 30 percent, or three out of…
EDITORIAL: April 27, 2018 Retiring Bright Light Is Inspiration To Rest Of Us A touching and inspiring event happened at Gilbertsville’s Major Inn last weekend: 150 wellwishers, from almost every town in Otsego County and as far away as London, England, packed the landmark mansion to express appreciation to a special lady, Erna Morgan McReynolds. For the past 30 years, Erna has been an investment counselor in Oneonta for Morgan Stanley (and its half-dozen predecessors), and thousands of clients have…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski, April 20, 2018 Nation’s Two-Party System Guarantees ‘The Iron Law Of Oligarchy’ Most voters enroll in one or the other major party, though the number of non-party enrollees has grown in recent years. In our area, and nationally, it’s very roughly one third Democrat, one third Republican, and one third non-partisan, or independent (small “i”). The two-party system goes back to the battles between Alexander Hamilton’s Federalists and Thomas Jefferson’s Republicans. The Jeffersonian Republicans have since…
EDITORIAL: April 20, 2018 Sheriff’s Shown He’s Tough, Smart First, voters should want a county sheriff who’s steady under fire. Over the past 15 months, county Sheriff Richard J. Devlin Jr. has proved he is. With his son Ros, a guard at the county jail, accused in a workplace disturbance and ordered off county property by the county Board of Representatives, Devlin hung tough, arguing he was the target of a “political witch hunt.” That didn’t seem completely out of…
EDITORIAL April 20, 2018 NYSEG Must Provide Full Range Of Energy OTHERWISE, OUTMIGRATION INEVITABLE Let’s not be prophets of doom, but we’re all thinking people who can more or less put the pieces of the puzzle together. In her March 29-30 column, our colleague, columnist Cathe Ellsworth, alerted us to an Albany Business Review report that Upstate New York lost 2 percent of its population between 2011 and 2015. Seven counties gained population; 20 lost it. In our general area,…
Editorial April 13, 2018 Facing Trade War, Let’s Buy U.S. Pork, Apples, Wine When did tariffs become a dirty word? In the early days of the Republic, tariffs were used liberally to allow the development of such mainstay domestic industries as coal, iron and textiles in the face of Great Britain’s overwhelming advantage. When Henry “The Great Compromiser” Clay died in 1852, obelisks were raised in his honor: Not for saving the Union, but for championing the tariff. Beginning with…
Column by Mike Zagata, April 13, 2018 Audubon Now Says: Young Forest Desireable You’ve just read the Spring 2018 issue of “Living Bird” magazine published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and were startled, and excited, to read: “Overall, specialists say a healthy forested landscape should include roughly 10 percent of young woodlands.” (Right now, that number for our forestland hovers around 2 percent.) That’s a dramatic shift from just a few years ago when Audubon was adamantly protecting…