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Met With Insults, Hoots The vote was taken, 4-2, and the boos and shouts rang out. “Election’s coming!” “How do you do an impeachment?” “Go back to Chicago!” And “Shame, shame, shame!” Thus ended the latest stirring chapter in what’s grown into a seven-month saga. The arena was CCS’ Sterling Auditorium, where for more than two hours on Monday evening, Nov. 19, 49 people, from Hugh MacDougall to Dan Naughton, held forth, all but a handful speaking against a proposal developed by the village trustees’ Police Committee to institute paid parking on Main and Pioneer streets, and in the Doubleday Field parking lot. It was the best-attended trustees’ meeting in memory – perhaps ever. Mayor Carol B. Waller’s husband Bill counted 298 people; Police Chief Diana Nicols 301. “So I’m saying 300,” the mayor said the next morning. In the end, none of the people who had to make the decision had changed their minds. The Police Committee – Deputy Mayor Paul Kuhn and Trustees Lynne Mebust and Grace Kull – joined by Trustee Jeff Katz, voted for the proposal. Trustees Eric Hage and Milo V. Stewart Jr. voted nay. Waller, who would have cast the tie-breaking vote in the event of a 3-3 outcome, was circumvented; she has come to oppose the proposal. The vote approved two measures. One is a law authorizing paid parking; it must now go to New York Secretary of State Lorraine A. Cortes-Vazquez for a routine stamp of approval. To change the law would now take a months-long process of preliminary discussions, public hearings, and another vote. Two is associated guidelines, defining whether meters, Pay & Display machines or a kiosk will be employed; establishing a permit system, or not, and deciding other work-a-day issues. They can be changed at any trustees’ meeting by a simple majority vote. In effect, that leaves the issue entirely open. The trustees can decide to do nothing. Or to limit paid parking to the Doubleday lot, which emerged as an option preferred to going the distance. Or hire an attendant instead of buying $8,000 P&D machines. The day after the stormy hearing, what the future holds was unclear. Kuhn and Mebust assumed the Police Committee would resume its deliberations. But Waller said, “I haven’t decided” if that’s the route to go, adding, “it’s an issue the Board of Trustees should deal with.” Another battleground will be the March village elections. The morning after, Kuhn confirmed that – after 10 years in the service of the village, as Planning Board member, Planning Board chairman, trustee and deputy mayor – he will not seek another term. But Katz – he moved here from Chicago, hence that catcall – and Waller are up for reelection. The mayor has been saying she hasn’t made up her mind. It is known she had considered her former deputy mayor, Glenn Hubbell, as her successor, but he was forced to resign from the village board last December due to health concerns. With Kuhn out of the picture, her bench is further depleted. It is known that Katz, at some point, would like to reach the mayoralty, but Monday’s meeting, where he became a lightning-rod for criticism, can’t have helped in that ambition. One of the cries Monday night was, “Milo for mayor, Milo for mayor,” since that trustee had come out early and strong against paid parking. The morning after, however, Stewart said, “I wouldn’t commit to running for mayor at this point.” If you think municipal governance is hum-drum, the meeting in Sterling Auditorium would have made you think again. With a girls soccer banquet going on in the cafeteria, all lots around the high school were filled, and parking extended all the way to the gate. Inside, both Police Chief Nicols and county Sheriff Richard J. Devlin – the school is outside village limits – were at the scene, and a handful of deputies and patrolmen were scattered around the venue. In welcoming the crowd, the mayor advised that – given the large attendance – she would be limiting speakers to two minutes each. Highpoints of the rhetoric included Fred Leminster, the downtown merchant and firefighter, echoing William Jennings Bryant: “Do not crucify merchants on the cross of paid parking.” Ed Johnson of the Fly Creek Valley, a daily visitor to town, was among those who said the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Bassett Hospital and The Otesaga need to come to grips with a problem of their making. “This is their responsibility, not our responsibility,” he said. “The last month has been a spectacular experience,” said Neil Weiller, the downtown merchant and “advocate for a balanced system” whose 11th-hour petition drive, assisted by fellow businessman Rod Torrence, caught fire. Time and again, longevity surfaced as a qualification, as speakers spoke of the generations their families had been in town, and some, in identifying themselves, gave the year they graduated from CCS. (Of the village board, only Stewart is a native Cooperstownian.) When all had spoken, Waller declared the public hearing at an end. She asked trustees to, one by one, say their piece. Kull read from a prepared statement, ending, “I see nothing to gain by putting this off and waiting to see what might or might not come along in the future.” And the boos began. Kuhn followed, recounting “the long trip” and concluding the village will never control traffic and capture tourism dollars “if we continue to give our best parking away.” The mayor had to rap her gavel. “There is a lot of opinion out there beyond this room,” said Katz. More gaveling. Stewart took a different tack: “We need to take the time to scrutinize this plan.” Cheers, applause and a standing ovation. “Milo for mayor!” Hage went with Stewart: “We all just have an honest disagreement of what’s right and what’s wrong.” Finally Mebust settled the matter: “When does giving it more thought mean not doing anything for years?” The outcome was now a foregone conclusion, but the mayor had her say: “I don’t think we’ve done enough here.” She proposed a commission – trustees, citizens and others – to report back with a consensus in six months. Before the vote was taken, Stewart surrendered the floor to his sister, Sarah, and realtor Donna Thompson, who read a list of more than 100 “proxies” – people who couldn’t make it to the meeting but opposed paid parking downtown. Sarah Stewart bearded Katz: “If these aren’t your constituents, Jeff, where are they?” The vote followed. It was peremptory, but the crowd leaped to its feet with a roar when Waller announced the result. And the next morning came the post-mortems. Waller: “I’m disappointed. I wanted to continue the work. I thought they spoke loud and clear. Ninety percent of the people who spoke last night had the same opinion.” Kuhn: “If people came to that meeting without really understanding what it is they were voicing their objection to, then I guess we have to say it’s our fault. I got the feeling that people didn’t even read the law.” Stewart: “It was a poor example of government. The Participation in Government students (from CCS) must be very confused right now. (Other trustees) showed dictatorship qualities. Not listening to the residents was a poor mistake and they don’t realize it. It was an egotistical move for each of them.” Kull: “”We have to move on and very carefully think through the regulations. And we will do it very carefully.” Hage: “You’ve got to try to keep it business-oriented. It’s not personal. You have to try to take your emotions out of it, and reason through what you think is most logical for the town. I hope that we, as a board, could move forward to deal with the other business we have to deal with. Because, obviously, we have more to deal with than just parking.” Mebust: “It just reinforces the lesson that you can’t please everyone.”  A medical-school campus in Cooperstown has received a $1.3 million boost, a gift from the Hannah-Lee Stokes Charitable Trust. “A visionary gift of this magnitude from the Stokes Charitable Trust will significantly benefit Mrs. Stokes’ beloved Cooperstown community as well as the surrounding area,” Dr. William F. Streck, Bassett president and chief executive, said Tuesday, Nov. 20, in announcing the gift. “The education of new physicians, many of whom will settle here, raise their families and participate in community life, will enhance our regional communities for generations,” he added. Already, 50-some physicians trained at Bassett have settled in the area. Mrs. Stokes, who died in 2001, had contributed $600,000 to the Friends of Bassett in 1994 to build the Hannah-Lee House, a residence for patients and family members. Under the medical-school program, announced early this year, students would spend their first two years training at Columbia, Dartmouth and other partner medical schools, and their last two years in the Bassett system. “Beyond academic excellence, Bassett’s medical school track will continue to imbue students with Bassett’s brand of humanism, social responsibility and leadership,” the official announcement of the Stokes’ gift declared. The medical-education program is now in a three-year development phase as Bassett works with the accrediting agency, the Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME) of the American Medical Association, and the Association of American Medical Colleges. Laura Schweitzer, an administrator at SUNY Upstate Medical University and vice provost at Syracuse University, joined Bassett in February as its first chief academic officer. Dr. Henry F. Weil of Cooperstown is co-director of the Medical School Campus Initiative. Mrs. Stokes was born Hannah-Lee Sherman, the grand-niece of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman. She came to Cooperstown later in life on the retirement of her husband, state Sen. Walter W. Stokes, who had purchased the Woodside Hall mansion. Although she came from a family of wealth, Hannah-Lee decided she wanted to work. She joined Vogue’s circulation department, but rose to one of the most famous models of her day, appearing on billboards throughout the country as “Miss Chesterfield.” Later, she and her husband – chairman of the Senate’s Conservation Commission and a backer of conservation legislation – divided their time between homes in Cooperstown, Albany and New York City, settling her in 1991. A Story of Friendship Peanut Butter Blossoms. Pecan Snowballs. Fruit Cake. Nutmeg Logs. Barbara Bartow bakes all these cookies “from scratch,” and the delicacies have been bringing growing hundreds of Christmas enthusiasts back every holiday season to A Dickens of a Christmas, her and hubby Jan’s arts-and-crafts-packed little grey saltbox a half-dozen homes south of the crossroads here. Which reminds Barbara and Susan Winnie, who have maintained a “33-year partnership of friendship,” of a story. One year, Barbara made gingerbread-shaped Christmas decorations. “We heard ‘crunch,’” said Sue. They overheard one shopper say, “These cookies are awfully hard!” “I think you’re eating the ornaments,” the other shopper replied. Barbara and Sue broke out laughing at the memory. “Something funny happens every year,” Sue said. The cookies, coffee and malt cider are just the start of it. The low-slung home is packed with all manner of Christmas-related items, from jewelry to potholders to stuffed animals. Like a lot of things, it just happened. After Barbara sold Colonial Florists on Cooperstown’s Main Street (where Tin Bin Alley is today), she and Jan – a post office employee who for four years was president of the state Rural Letter Carriers Association – developed Cooperstown Originals, and sold her crafts at the two big shows a year at Hunter Mountain. Meanwhile, Sue, a Bassett Hospital nurse for three decades, was developing Winnie Woman Originals, quilts, wall-hangings, potholders – anything involving needlework. So seven years ago they created A Dickens of a Christmas, which they call “a craft show, not a business.” Why? “I love Christmas,” said Barbara. “Christmas is my favorite season,” Sue chimes in seamlessly. You’ll find the two of them carry on a two-part conversation, kind of like a round, filling in for each other and finishing each other’s sentences. The ladies met in the ‘70s at the bar in the Fly Creek Hotel, where Jan was bartending, and have been fast friends ever since. “I’m not bossy,” said Barbara, who is the older and the senior figure in the mother-daughter relationship. “I just have better ideas.” “Her ideas work,” Sue agreed. The two argue, she said, but never fight. There are never any hard feelings. Sue and her husband, Lee, have two sons, Zachary, 23, and Michael, 14. But Barbara raised six children, Sherry Phillips, the Schuyler Lake postmistress; Sue Markusen, a pharmacy technician at CVS; Jenna Bartow, a fourth-grade CCS teacher, and three sons, Rae, Mark and Stephen Althiser. Every year, they take Barbara’s daughters and go to quilting classes in Lancaster, Pa. Or they go to Vermont, shopping and looking for ideas. While this conversation is going on, a couple of customers were wandering around the house. “They’d been here a couple of hours,” said Sue, and the partners typically leave visitors alone, and people like that. “We don’t hover.” Items in the store range from 50 cents up. The most expensive item is $89, a Santa in a train. (Each item sells separately for $89.) “People come here because they want to be here,” said Sue. “How you been? How’s the family?” Barbara chimed in. “You get to know them on an intimate basis.” After the first season, calligrapher Kittie Johnson created a letter that Barbara and Sue mailed out to everyone who signed the guest book, and that annual letter has become a tradition, mailed out to addresses from Barnevelt and Albany to England and Japan. If customers don’t come back for three seasons, they’re removed from the mailing list. Even so, 900 letters went out this year. Editor’s Note: Atnas Sualc is a pseudonym for Mij Nilvek. On Opening Day Tom Titone, who was crossing County Highway 35 with a 270 Winchester Short Magnum under his arm on the second day of deer-hunting season, hadn’t even seen a deer yet. But he was hardly discouraged. Hunters in the Tabor Hill neighborhood, as well as his pal Jim O’Hagan, had spotted a five-pointer, a seven-pointer and even an eight-pointer. “There’s more game up here than I’ve ever seen in my life,” said O’Hagan, walking up from a brushy area along Cherry Valley Creek where a four-pointer had strolled by. Titone’s a crack shot, O’Hagan said, and can drop a buck at 300 yards. It was Sunday, Nov. 18, and it was a beautiful day for being outdoors. The sun was shining, and temperatures were in the upper 40s. There was a dusting on the ground, ideal for tracking. Titone and O’Hagan, who began hunting small game at age 8 on Long Island, weren’t alone in their optimism about the season. Statewide, the deer harvest in the first two days of the hunting season was 29 percent higher than the year before, according to Gordon Batcheller, the state wildlife biologist in Albany responsible for keeping track of these things. If anything, he said, conditions have been too good: “Hunting in bright sunshine, the deer are harder to see.” This deer season is different because, for the first time, it coincides with the season on bear, which have been pouring over the border from New Jersey and thriving in ideal conditions in the Catskills Region, which includes Otsego County. Statewide, Batcheller continued, more than 100 bear were shot in the first two days of the season, more than double the year before. Hunters around here believe folks from New Jersey are trapping nuisance bruins and dumping them in this neighborhood, but the state biologist discounts that theory. It’s simply that, despite pleading from New York State game officials, the Garden State refuses to institute a bear season, the equivalent of “pumping bears” into the Empire State. Back in Middlefield, the two friends have taken a lunch break at Titone’s home in Westford, where two black Labs, one tan, one black, greeted them. The knotty-pine walls in Tom’s basement den is full of trophies, including a 14-pointer his girlfriend Anne Carr shot the year before. She comes downstairs, and he’s right: The buck was bigger than she was. What a hunter’s paradise. Ten years ago, Titone remembers, he saw an unfamiliar animal in the back yard. “A horse,” he thought to himself. “No, a donkey. My god … a moose!” By the time the game warden got to the house, the animal had disappeared into the darkness. A week later, though, Titone was listening to the scanner. A van had collided with a horse on I-88 toward Cobleskill, and the trooper was summoning a truck and a backhoe to remove it. Silence, then the trooper’s voice crackled over the scanner again. “Correct that horse,” he said. “A moose.” | Jan. 04, 2008 | Local Honor Roll | Pages From The Paper | july 6th 2007 | Hall of Fame Friday | Hall of Fame Saturday | Hall of Fame Sunday | Hall of Fame Monday | July282006 Archive | Aug042006 Archive | Aug112006 Archive | Aug182006 Archive | Sept012006 Archive | Sept082006 Archive | Sept152006 Archive | Sept222006 Archive | Sept292006 Archive | Oct062006 Archive | Oct132006 Archive | Oct202006 Archive | Oct272006 Archive | Nov032006 Archive | Nov172006 Archive | Nov242006 Archive | Dec012006 Archive | Dec082006 Archive | Dec152006 Archive | Dec222006 Archive | Dec292006 Archive | Jan052007 Archive | Jan192007 Archive | Jan262007 Archive | February092007 Archive | February162007 Archive | February232007 Archive | March162007 Archive | March232007 Archive | March302007 Archive | March302007 Archive | April132007 News Archive | Chris Gentile | Obituary | April272007 Archive | May112007 Archive | May112007 Archive | May252007 Archive | June 22, 2007 | July 13 2007 | Sept05 2007 | Sept 7th 2007 | Aug 31st 2007 | Local Law Parking | October 26, 2007 | Nov. 2 2007 | Nov. 16, 2007 | Glimmerglass Oct 5,2007 | Nov 16., 2007 | November 30 2007 | Nov. 30, 2007 | Dec. 07, 2007 | Dec. 14, 2007 | Dec. 21, 2007 | Dec. 28, 2007 | Jan. 11, 2008 | Jan. 18, 2008 | Jan. 25, 2008 | Feb 1, 2008 | Feb. 8, 2008 | Feb. 22, 2008 | GlimmerGlass Feb. 15, 2008 | Sports Feb. 15, 2008 | Feb.28, 2008 | March 7, 2008 | March 14, 2008 | GlimmerGlass March 14, 2008 | March 21, 2008 | March 28, 2008 | April 4, 2008 | April 11, 2008 | April 18, 2008 | April 25, 2008 | May 9, 2008 | May 2, 2008 | May 23, 2008 | | Our Services | Contact Us | Great Links | Return Home | Classified Ads | News Archive | Cooperstown Homes | Calendar -Best Bets | Letters to the Editor | |
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