LETTER from DOUGH BARCLAY Celebrate Pot Legalization Now, Rue It Later Though the Governor has already signed this legislation into law, I wanted to share my statement from earlier this week on the decision to legalize recreational marijuana: Many are going to celebrate the passage of the ‘Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act.’ But we didn’t solve any problems today, we only created new ones. Democrats will claim victory, but they ignore the inherent dangers associated with their decision. Legalizing marijuana…
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EDITORIAL Otsego Electric’s Broadband: Entrepreneurism At Its Best Otsego Electric’s Broadband initiative wasn’t mentioned in last week’s editorial on entrepreneurism in arts organizations – it’s an electric cooperative, not a dance troupe. Still, it’s worth a separate nod. While local governments and the citizenry at large were crying out to Albany and Washington for universal Broadband, CEO Tim Johnson and the Hartwick-based, non-profit rural-electrification entity simply did it. As reported last week, in the past three years, Otsego Electric has…
LETTER from DAN BUTTERMANN ‘Dazzling’ Green Energy Best Bet On The Future For New York’s Citizens To the Editor: The next New York State budget is on its way to passage, and with the federal stimulus of $12.6 billion it will not be as bad as projected. But there are still many problems ahead. Our state had a budget deficit before the pandemic, and a declining population, which the census will likely confirm later this year. We must look for…
Pot Shops Becoming Issue Here By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Before reacting, the Village Board is waiting to see what the marijuana-legalization bill due to pass the state Legislature April 1 looks like. But Trustee Mac Benton, who brought the issue before the trustees at their monthly meeting Monday, March 22, is determined to push for pot-selling “storefronts” in Baseball’s mecca, seeing it as an economic-development opportunity too good to ignore. If the new law doesn’t give the…
EDITORIAL Here’s Evidence That The Arts Can Be Entrepreneurial, Too When the going gets tough, the entrepreneurs get going. A corollary: The entrepreneurial spirit isn’t limited to entrepreneurs. (Per Merriam-Webster: “A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater-than-normal financial risks in order to do so.”) So it was telling to watch the Cooperstown Chamber’s first “Coffee With Coop” panel discussion via Zoom last Friday, March 19. Kudos to the Chamber, and Executive Director Tara Burke,…
$7.4M Grant Fuels Broadband March By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Hickling’s Fish Farm Inc. is exactly what Otsego Electric President/CEO Tim Johnson is talking about. In tanks inside four sizeable modern buildings on Pitts Road near here, the Hicklings are growing 65-70,000 trout yearlings annually, and another 20-30,000 pounds of 2-year-old bass, which – a delicacy in Thai and other cultures – are sold to Asian markets in Boston and other East Coast cities. “The big money we’re…
EDITORIAL Water Plant Done, Is One Greater Oneonta Inevitable? Bob Wood was dealt a winning hand when elected Oneonta town supervisor in 2008, and he played the hand well. He announced his retirement last Friday, March 5 – 299 days to go until Dec. 31, he said – and expressed satisfaction that $12 million in projects – $3-plus million for a new town highway garage and $8-plus million for the long-awaited Southside water project – will be completed by the…
Editorial America IS Great Over Three Generations, Oneonta’s Naders Prove It With the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the summer-long riots following George Floyd’s death and debates over race relations, we can forget: We live in a great country, where ambition and hard work are almost assuredly rewarded. A case in point – a life in point – is Sam Nader, the respected and beloved former mayor of Oneonta, who passed away Tuesday, Feb. 9, at age 101. When…
No Phone, No Internet Stymies So. Worcester Couple By MICHAEL FORSTER ROTHBART • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com As Margaret Wolff waited during the recommended 15-minute observation period following her inoculation Saturday afternoon, Jan. 30, Rita Tetenes was at her home here. Tetenes was not one of the lucky ones. Although she and her husband Leo are in their 80s, they still live independently in a far, hilly corner of Otsego County. Schoharie County begins across the narrow valley from their home,…
HAPPENIN’ OTSEGO for WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20 Virtual Tour Of Hamilton Exhibit PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION – 46th President Joe Biden to be inaugurated in Washington DC. VIRTUAL TOUR – 2 p.m. Zoom meeting featuring walk through of exhibit ‘Hamilton’s Final Act: Enemies and Allies’ with manager of arts education Kevin Gray. Free, registration required. Suggested donation $5. Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown. 607-547-1400 or visit www.fenimoreartmuseum.org…