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 In the News This Week -- Oct. 06, 2006 |
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 Hampton Inn & Suites Planned, 4th Hotel in Hartwick Seminary By JIM KEVLIN HARTWICK SEMINARY After a hiatus of a single building season, more major development is targeted for the stretch of Route 28 in Hartwick Seminary that is on its way to becoming northern Otsego County's commercial strip. At 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 10, in town hall, the Hartwick Planning Board will consider: * A three-story, 74-unit Hampton Inn & Suites proposed by Erfan Khan, owner of the Holiday Inn Express, who hopes to have construction under way in mid-November and the grand opening next June 1. The Hampton Inn would be adjacent and just to the north of Khan's Holiday Inn. * a 14,000-square-foot pharmacy not a Walgreen's, as rumored in the neighborhood, but another major chain, according to the engineering firm right across Route 28 from McDonald's. Greg Sgromo, principal in Dunn & Sgromo engineers, said plans are to break ground in the spring and be ready to go by summer. Hartwick Seminary, a quiet Town of Hartwick hamlet just a decade ago, is on the main route from Interstate 88 to Cooperstown's world-class attractions, and it began to experience a commercial boom after Dreams Park, the first youth-baseball-tournament camp, opened in 1995. In 2000, The Commons opened; the shopping center now includes a P&C supermarket, a Best Western Inn & Suites, a Pizza Hut and a steakhouse as well as the McDonald's, smaller stores and restaurants and an NBT bank branch. That was followed by the Holiday Inn & Suites (2004) and the Howard Johnson's Express (2005), a half-mile south of The Commons. With Dreams Park attracting more than 14,000 players for its 11-week season plus 50,000 family members, 3.5 per player, up from 2.5 in 2005 numerous adjunct businesses, from the Yum Yum Shack restaurant to Grand Slam Paintball, have opened in the neighborhood. According to plans in town hall, the Hampton Inn, while next to the Holiday Inn, is seeking another curb-cut from Route 28; it would also use an existing gravel path as a service road. An additional 86 parking spaces would increase the parking lot of both lodging places to 157 spaces. The inn rooms are mostly designed for two queen-size double beds, with 12 family suites, two at the end of each floor, and two large suites above the lobby on the second and third story that will feature king-size beds and a spa. The structure itself would be aligned east to west, at right angles to the north-south Holiday Inn. It would be set back 67 feet from Route 28; the back of the building would be 10 feet from the lot line. In an interview, Khan said the feasibility study shows that, even with the new Hampton Inn, the summertime demand for rooms will not be satisfied. "We welcomed Dreams Park; we have to welcome what comes with it," said the hotelier, who went into the hotel business when customers buying gas at the Pit Stop, the Sunoco station up the road, his first business in the area, kept asking him where to get a room for the night. As it stands, the Hartwick Seminary hotels are filled for the 11-week Dreams Park season, which Khan pointed out will expand to 12 weeks in 2007. The families of Dreams Park players are filling B&Bs throughout the area, and many people in Cooperstown and around are renting out rooms, and even their homes, to the visitors during the summer. The pharmacy would be located about a quarter-mile south of the Hampton, and its driveway would line up directly across from the McDonald's driveway. Sgromo, who has been with his firm for 33 years, the principal since 1997, said his company has erected buildings for Walgreen's, but has also done so for Kinney's, Rite-Aid and CVS, (and has designed projects ranging from the Hickory Hills Golf Course Sgromo's favorite and Carnegie Bay Inlet Harbor Club, to two large expansions for Solvay Paperboard.) A company has been lined up for the Hartwick Seminary store, he said, but he declined to be specific since the final contract has not been signed. Since the Town of Hartwick has no zoning, both developers must undergo a less-onerous design review process. Oneonta's Riordan Group is the engineering firm for the hotel project; it is working with Rod Etzel of Alestalo & Etzel Architects, Syracuse, and Hawk Engineering of Binghamton, which is designing the septic system. Hartwick Supervisor Mary Balcom said one issue of concern is how local fire companies would combat a blaze in a three-story building without an aerial-ladder truck; the nearest one is in Cooperstown, and there would be a lag in getting it to the scene. The only other three-story building in the town is the Howard Johnson's.   Crowds Thrilled By Big Gourds, Regatta By BREN MIOSEK COOPERSTOWN It was Sunday, Oct. 1 PumpkinFest, Day Two and the Giant Pumpkin Event Sponsors Race was under way. Pete Jordan, representing Oneonta's Royal Chrysler, maneuvered his hollowed-out pumpkin to an early lead, but not for long. Meticulous paddling, balance and discipline propelled Tim Gould, owner of Cooley's Stone House Tavern, back into contention. He locked into a blistering pumpkin-racing pace and passed Jordan. Smith Ford's Chad Welch held onto third, trailed by Matt Aldrich, paddling for the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Then, in a stunning turnabout, Jordan and Aldrich caught Gould,. The result, a three-way draw for first-place; Welch faded to fourth. "In the sense of fairness, we decided to declare all of our event sponsors first-place winners," said Polly Renckens, Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce executive director. "It appears that several of the pumpkins bottomed out, or got hung up, on rocks towards the end of the race." It was all I could do to keep from dumping it, said Welch, a veteran pumpkin regatta racer. I had a tea-cup shaped pumpkin. I wasn't as concerned with speed as I was with sinking. The day before Weigh-In Day Joe Pukos of Leicester, Livingston County, won the Giant Pumpkin Growers Competition. His massive soon-to-be jack-o-lantern tipped the scales at 1,225.3 pounds. Tim Bailey of Jamestown won second, with a 1,151.5-pound behemoth, followed by Craig Lembke of Forestville, near Erie, Pa., with a pumpkin weighing 1,091.78 pounds. PumpkinFest is as much of an event as competition, and there was plenty of that, as hundreds of festival-goers enjoyed the sights, aromas and entertainment in Doubleday Parking Lot while the weigh-in was under way there. Events included a scavenger hunt, tours of the village, pumpkin carving, juggling and a magic show. Lembke, who won last year's weigh-in, said he'd been growing mammoth pumpkins for 25 years, beginning when his daughter, Angela, was 2; she's now 28. Angela's dad saw a "Big Moon" seed in a catalogue, and he was hooked. His secret to mammoth pumpkins? "Never let them go hungry," he said. According to Lembke, the mega-fertilizer producers Dow and the like are partial to granular fertilizer so "foliage feeding" his preference is Agro K, which he sprayed on the leaves every evening is not in general use. By midnight, 85 percent of the nutrient was absorbed, with mammoth results. Sunday, the activities moved to Lakefront Park, where Tim Segal and the Otsego OOMPAH Band and the Catskill Puppeteers were among the performers prior to the pumpkin regatta. The entire weekend went incredibly well, with an outstanding turnout, said Renckens. We had pumpkins from Ohio and Pennsylvania for the first time ever. Overall, the event was a tremendous success." The largest Otsego County pumpkin was grown by Amy Parr; it weighed 403.7 pound pumpkin, followed by Brendan Lohan's 371.4-pound vegetable and Megan Lohan's third-place 352.6-pounder. Other local vegetables of note were presented by Deb Miller, 345.9 pounds; Daniel Yurenka, 162.1; Devin Gaviria, 158.5; Liz Lohan, 153.6; Crystal Carson, 91.5, Diane Accurso, 59.6; Sarah Siegel, 37.3 pounds.  150 Roiled By Otsego Proposal FLY CREEK "Tyranny" and "civil war" and similar harsh words and phrases slipped from the lips of some of the 150 people who gathered in the Fly Creek Fire Hall Wednesday, Oct. 4, worried about proposed Conservation Subdivision Regulations now under consideration by the Otsego town board. "You people need to stem this now," declared lifelong resident Wayne Wier, his voice quivering, who said if he wants to cut firewood, or build a house on a slope or put a building at the lot line of his Glimmerglen Road farm, "that's my choice." "We have a lot of people here who think they know what 's better for us," he said. "And I'm sick of it." But, while everyone agreed they need to know more about the draft regulations, the evening featured a range of conflicting opinions, firmly expressed. After the planners who crafted the proposals were described as among other terms "devils," planning board member Paul Lord stood at the microphone and declared emphatically, "I'm one of those devils." "We love you, Paul," a voice cried out from the crowd. Lord said he's a retired Marine and his wife works for Otsego County in other words, they're working people. "We don't want to see our land values go down; and we don't want to see our taxes go up higher than they have to." Yet, he said, he helped draft the regulations and he supports them. When a housing development was proposed in the Town of Otsego's Christian Hill section, the town board adopted a 12-month moratorium last December to allow time to update the 20-year-old Comprehensive Master Plan. Meanwhile, it also began development of the subdivision regulations in response to a community survey that showed people favor preserving the town's open space. Two months after the draft regulations were proposed, an anonymous letter titled, "Warning/Alert. The Town Board is currently trying to pass a new subdivision law that will do great harm to this town and make most of your land WORTHLESS!!!!!!," appeared in local mailboxes last week. It turns out it was distributed by residents Jim Ainslie and John Philips, who is also a member of the town planning board; the two men chaired the firehouse meeting. The first speaker of the evening supported Ainslie and Philips, but Jim Atwell of Fly Creek, the local author and spouse of Town Board member Anne Geddes-Atwell, spoke next and the battle fairly polite, but combative nonetheless was joined. Atwell called the pamphlet "a scare tactic," and criticized "a great concentration of exclamation points," saying "this appeal is not to reason, but to emotion, pure and simple." He urged all those present, "read the damn draft," attend a 7 p.m., Monday, Oct. 16, informational meeting the town board is planning on the draft, and "express yourself by your presence and by your voice, too." (His wife, who was also present, further encouraged people to attend.) "No tar," he said, "no feathers," just information-gathering and discussion. The proposed regulations would return the minimum lot size in the town to five acres from three, and institute a formula whereby, when a lot is developed, half of it would be set aside for permanent protection. Under another provision, if 30 acres were targeted for a six-home development, the homes could be put on five-acre lots, or they could be clustered on an acre apiece and the rest set aside for open space. Also criticized was a prohibition of construction on land with more than a 15 percent slope. The two organizers displayed a map from the county's GIS office that overlay the slope requirements with wetlands, rock ledge and other limiting factors; the result, they said, was that virtually no land was left for development in the town. Supervisor Tom Breiten, who was unable to attend the meeting, said earlier in the day he would have preferred the town had the luxury of updating its Comprehensive Master Plan first, before developing the Conservation Subdivision Regulations, but with the moratorium running out in mid-December the town board felt pressure to move forward. "We didn't have the luxury of doing things in that order," he said. He emphasized the word "draft" in talking about the regulations, and noted one change in the offing: Nan Stoltzenburg, the town's planning consultant, had suggested a "net density" formula for computing developable land: subtract non-developable land wetlands, rock, etc. then set aside 50 percent. But there's also a "gross density" formula, where non-developable land would not be subtracted, opening up more acreage for development. "There are two groups of people I want to protect," said Breiten. "One, who own property and want to live here. Two, who own property and want to sell it. "People who want to sell should have the right to sell," he continued. "But they shouldn't have the right to sell and devalue the land of the first group." The supervisor said he was initially put off because the circular was anonymous, but he said, "I don't think there's any malicious intent. I just don't think they understand what the regulations are designed to accomplish." At the firehouse meeting, both organizers said they support the concept of preserving the town they love. "I didn't know I'd have to do it at the complete loss of my farm," said Philips, who has three daughters and a 138-acre property. "I don't want to be told what to do with my property," Jenny Johannesen, who owns a 100-acre farm, declared at one point. "When they start telling me what to do with my land," said Carl Wenner, "that's un-American. They're tyrants." As the evening waned, however, Adrian Kuzminski of Fly Creek urged people to "check the emotions." Just as citizens get a benefit from the law requiring drivers to drive on the right side of the road, so reasonable land regulation is necessary, he said. "If you want to maximize your property values," he concluded, "you aren't going to get that by doing everything you like. It's got to be give and take."  'Susquehanna' Novelist Discovers 'Friend's' Source COOPERSTOWN As Harriet Feldstein growing up in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., she'd go down to the Susquehanna River on the Fourth of July, sit on one of dikes and watch flower-filled floats that were actually blown up a local custom as part of the patriotic festivities. As a teen-ager, she learned to swim and canoe in the Susquehanna during summers at Girl Scout Camp Onawandah in Tunkhannock, Pa. When she achieved "mariner" rank, she and other campers of that stature actually lived in a houseboat attached to a tree by a steel cable that was almost torn from its moorings by high water. During the Flood of 1936, the mighty river lapped right up to her family's Wilkes-Barre home while the young girl, inside, feverishly fought scarlet fever. The Flood of 1972 it broke into the tunnels and ended anthracite mining there ruined the Franklin Street home where her widowed mother still lived. When, now Harriet Segal, she began writing her first novel in the early '80s while living in Westchester County it was a family saga based on her family's experience in the anthracite region she didn't think to call it "Hard Coal" or "Coming to America" or some-such. It seemed natural to call it simply, "Susquehanna: A Novel." Doubleday published it in 1984, and it was released in paperback by the New American Library the following year. It was published in the U.K., translated into Slovenian, recorded for the sight-impaired and nominated for the Westchester Library Association's Washington Irving Book List. Despite her lifetime affinity to the Susquehanna River, she'd never visited its source. That is, until she and her husband, Dr. Sheldon J. Segal, distinguished scientist at the Population Council in New York City, came to Cooperstown for the first time on Friday, Sept. 29, to visit longtime friends, Clifton and Dolores Wharton. Knowing their friend's interest in the Susquehanna, the Whartons made it a first stop. "I am very struck by this," Harriet Segal said on returning to the river's mouth the next day at a reporter's request. "This river has long been dear to my heart." In Cooperstown, it's easy to take for granted the pleasant, placid stream that flows from Otsego Lake's southern end, under the Main Street and Fernleigh bridges, past Bassett Hospital and, hidden from highway view, wends its way through Hartwick, Milford and Goodyear Lake to the world beyond. Most road maps mark the Susquehanna in light blue, but the line usually runs out before it reaches James Fenimore Cooper's Glimmerglass, so many visitors familiar with the river from Williamsport, Pa., or Harrisburg, or the Amish country, or Chesapeake Bay are surprised to learn it starts here. Harriet Segal recalled that her father, Dr. Albert R. Feinberg, a physician, was with the 109th Field Artillery Regiment, and was placed in charge of rescue efforts at Wilkes-Barre during the '36 flood. "The river was the enemy," observed her husband. It that context, it must have been. But the novelist remembered happier associations. She quickly chimed in, "No it wasn't, I considered it a friend." In fact, "Susquehanna" it's not in the stacks at the Cooperstown Village Library, but it is available from four libraries in the regional system opens with the heroine sitting on a hill overlooking the mighty stream. In the original manuscript, the first 250-pages were a history of the river from the Native Americans to modern times ala James Michener, her publisher told her but her editor lopped it off. "Susquehanna" was an end, but a beginning. Three novels followed: "Catch the Wind," "Shadow Mountain" and "Skylark's Song," and a fourth, "Northern Lights," is under way. The Whartons and the Segals had met in the 1950s, when Dr. Segal and Dr. Wharton, later the SUNY Chancellor and president of the University of Michigan, were in different branches of the Ford Foundation. When the Segals were later stationed in Delhi, they visited the Whartons, then posted to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. COOPERSTOWN If the Vielguths ever visit again from Chatham, N.J., it's likely they'll wear hardhats. Craig Vielguth, his wife Vicki and their youngest son, Tyler, 14, were in town Saturday, Sept. 30, to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Leaving town, they noticed a game ongoing in Doubleday Field, so they pulled up and the father and son scooted inside, leaving mom in the van. As she was sitting there, waiting, she heard a thud. A foul ball had spun over the fence and struck the van. "She had been startled," her husband said later, "but had the sense to recover the ball." Craig and Tyler hopped into the van a few minutes later and headed down the right field line toward Chestnut Street. Suddenly, crash. "Yes, lightning had struck twice," said Vielguth, "another fould ball had hit my car," this time cracking the back-window next to where Craig was sitting, cracking the glass "like a jigsaw puzzle" but not shattering it. The New Jersey family did praise Greg Harris of the Doubleday maintenance crew for helping them tape up the window. Judging from their experience, he may have had a lot of practice, they surmised. "I wish this hadn't happened," said Vielguth. "But if your car is goingto hit with baseballs, what better place than Doubleday Field in Cooperstown." | 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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