Hometown Oneonta - The Otesgo-Delaware Dispatch

SANTA RIDES RAILS INTO ONEONTA

Friday, November 27, 2009

C-P CHOO-CHOO A HIT

Laura Cox/HOMETOWN ONEONTA

Canadian Pacific Railways’s Holiday Train Santa Claus raps for hundreds of local residents outside Neahwa Park on Sunday, Nov. 29. When he was done rapping, Santa was welcomed into the crowd where he handed out train whistles and candy canes.

Gianna Naples, 3, Wells Bridge, came in her holiday dress to watch the musical performance with her dad, Dale. Her brothers Isaac, 2, and Owen, 3, were dressed more casually.

Labels: 12-04-09, Front Page

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Clock Mechanism Repaired, On Display

Lions Repair Clock, Return It Downtown

By LAURA COX

In a heated storage room at All-Star Car Wash the Lions worked.
They unloaded two large crates, unwrapped small and large packages – about 80 – tinkered with numerous cogs and wheels, and spent many manhours reassembling the mechanism of the clock that once ticked high above Oneonta’s Westcott Block, (now a parking lot.)
Last month, they installed it in the Main Street window in the walkway from Main to the parking garage.
“It’s really amazing we got it to work,” said Terry Morley, project chairman. “I thought we’d be able to get it to move somewhat, but to actually get it to work when you turn it is amazing.”
The Oneonta Lions Club took on the project of restoring the old town clock when Morley retired from his job as a building contractor last spring. He had been storing the crates of clock pieces in his work building and had to move them, so he figured they might as well get going on the project.
He proposed dedicating the project to Jim Catella, a City Hall supervisor at the time the Westcott Block was torn down in 1968. Catella somehow ended up with some of the pieces, who eventually passed them on the Morley.
A plaque on the clock says it was built by The Howard Clock Co., Boston, in 1887. The city paid John Canning 50 cents a week to climb the tower and wind it.
When contacted by Morley, Howard Clock – it is still making clocks – offered to send a consultant to help with the rebuild at $500 a day.
“We decided we would do it ourselves,” said Morley.
With about a dozen or so members helping at one point or another, and three really focused on it – Morley, club President Breck Tarbell and Jeff Polling. They toiled over the clockwork for months putting things together and pulling them back apart to try to get things to work, using trial and error to guide them.
When they got everything where it worked, they cleaned and oiled all the cogs, wheels and gears so they wouldn’t rust, gave the outside stand a new coat of green paint and highlighted the clock manufacturer’s name in gold.
“We didn’t know there would be so much brass,” said Morley, “I think it cleaned up pretty well.”
Also in the Main Street case with the clock are balancing weights and a set of clock hands. Morley said the original hands are missing, as is the 1,000-pound bell. The clock faces and tower were unsalvageable when the clock was torn down in 1968.
This Lions Club, while dedicated to providing sight to individuals who need glasses or have eye problems, has started a club tradition in clocks. In 1977 the Lions club bought the current town clock that sits atop 242 Main St.

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Brooks Heads Toward Horizon, Advancing One Step At A TimeBrooks Heads Toward Horizon, Advancing One Step At A Time

Brooks BBQ Looking To Future

By JIM KEVLIN

When Ryan Brooks thinks about the future, he thinks about the whole United States of America, and Canada, and beyond.
“It’s a dream that everybody has,” he said in an interview.
The third-generation operator of Brooks BBQ knows his company will get there, but not tomorrow.
“Baby steps,” is a term he uses. It’s a concept that brought his company this far, and he’s confident that should be the strategy going into the future.
In recent months, you may have noticed Brooks BBQ sauces getting a higher profile; the display rack at Cooperstown’s and other Great Americans, for instance.
A recently hired marketing consultant, Mark Joseph Kelly of Albany, piqued interest when he told a breakfast meeting of downtown businesspeople this fall of the company’s national – eventually – ambitions.
Oneonta – “Smoketown USA,” the ad campaign might have it – would continue to be the hub of an ever-expanding wheel.
Right now, Ryan Brooks said, the company is “a regional brand” that extends 200 miles in every direction.
Because of SUNY Oneonta, Hartwick College, and such national draws as the two local sports halls of fame, there’s some demand in every state, he said.
Beginning in the 1990s, the company’s Web site – brooksbbq.com – took the mail-order business (hand -filled quart bottles, beginning in 1988) to the next level.
Today, sauces are being shipped far and wide every day, and not just in the U.S.: as far as Japan and Australia.
The number of orders coming from the Gulf Coast – Tampa, Bradenton, St. Pete – makes it tempting to “stretch toward Florida” next, Brooks said.
“The thing is, if we go national, can we keep up with it?” he asked.
The first step was to assess the company’s strengths – Ryan can draw on a brain trust that includes his grandparents, company founders Griffin and Frances, and his parents and predecessors, John and Joan.
The conclusion: One restaurant – 1,500 dinners a night, at peak, plus 600 catering jobs a year – was as much as he and his wife and partner, Beth – both are hands-on – could handle.
“We wanted to focus on production and quality control,” but not be limited by that, Brooks said.
A first step was to rachet up production. Then, an assembly line in one of the back buildings could fill 1,200 bottles a day.
Now, a new production line, completed last year on the back of the Generations Gift Shop & Ice Cream Shop, behind the main restaurant, turns out 1,400 bottles an hour.
A parallel challenge was lining up distributors, who won’t handle just any product. Brooks considered it a coup that Lomac Associates of Syracuse and Sysco, the national food mega-distributor, took on the Brooks line.
And the Brooks line was expanded to five sauces, including teriyaki nad roasted garlice. “Wing sauces have really taken off,” he added. And there’s a sampler gift box. (A Rochester company had just ordered 215 to hand out as Christmas gifts.)
“We know this restaurant,” said Brooks. “But when it comes to getting the product out there – marketing it – this is something we didn’t know.”
Brooks is a regional landmark – talk to Ryan Brooks for long, and he begins telling stories about how customers love the place: One couple had their reception in the banquet hall, and come back every year on their anniversary.

But it was only when Kelly began his marketing survey that the company’s reach became evident: It is a regional tourist draw, and the Otsego County Tourism Office views it as such.
“How warm of a feeling does that give you?” Brooks asked.

Ryan Brooks and the production
line that fills 1,400 bottles an hour.

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City Of the Hills

400 Pack Courthouse For Hearing

COOPERSTOWN

Four-hundred people, including more than 100 lawmen from Otsego
County and around the state, packed the county courthouse Tuesday evening, Dec. 1, to emphatically oppose cuts at the county jail and in road patrols.
The final budget hearing was to be followed Wednesday evening by approval of the 2009-10 budget.

Otsego County Sheriff’s Deputies Mike Clark,
left, and Kevin Burrow, behind him, were among
perhaps 100 law enforcement officers from around
the state among 400 who packed the Board of
Representatives’ 2009-10 budget hearing Tuesday
evening, Dec. 1. To forestall an 11 percent tax
increase, the budget cuts across the board:
correctional officers and sheriff’s road patrols,
but also public health and code enforcement. The final budget vote was due Wednesday, Dec. 2.

County Rep. Jim Powers, R-South New Berlin, chairman of the Otsego County Board of Representatives, sets the ground rules as the hearing opened. Seated behind him, from left, are county Reps. Greg Relic, Unadilla; Jim Johnson, Otsego; Kathy Clark, Otego; Scott Harrington, Oneonta; Kay Stuligross, Oneonta, and Martha Stayton, Oneonta. At left is Laura Child, clerk of the board.

Sheriff Richard J. Devlin Jr. is interviewed for WKTV Utica prior to the hearing. Genesee County Sheriff Gary T. Maha, president of the state Association of County Sheriffs, attended at Devlin’s request to speak against prospective cuts. So did sheriffs from Niagara, Fulton, Onondaga counties and other jurisdictions.

Otsego Supervisor Ernest Kroll, left, who is also a firefighter, attended. Next to him are Mike Anzelone, Ray Miller and Nate Hitchcock, Hartwick firefighters.

COUNTERS SOUGHT:
The Census Bureau is looking for 30 people to assist with “address
validation” in Otsego County, beginning in April. $12.50, plus mileage. Call Orlo Burch, 293-6460.

$10,000:
The Child Care Connection, a program of Catholic Charities of Delaware and Otsego Counties, has received a $10,000 grant from the Community Foundation for South Central New York.

Labels: 12-04-09, Front Page, The City of the Hills

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Jill Carey To Read Just-Published Poems

By: LAURA COX

Jill Carey: author, teacher, doodler, musician, performer.
There is no one word to describe this woman, but she will be reading “humorous stories and witticisms” from her new illustrated book Telling Tales at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 10, at the Green Toad Bookstore.
With a master’s degree in computer graphics, she has taught college courses in English and business, and has been doodling in the edges of her notebooks since she was 7.
“I remember my teacher writing home, ‘Jill must learn not to draw on the back of her math test,’” said Carey in an interview at her Oneonta home on Monday.
She explained that her doodling continues to this day accompanied by everyday observations of life on whatever scraps of paper she could find, unpaid phone bills, envelopes whatever. She admits that even when she is driving if something comes to her she must stop (or not) to write it all out.
Her poems and short stories come to her in bursts of clarity; she has three books full now all illustrated with her pen ink sketches and doodles.
“My husband may leave for a short while and he will come back and I will say ‘I think I just wrote another story,’ said Carey.
Her husband, Ed Michaels, is a drummer of some renown.
Growing up in Philadelphia Carey was raised to be a debutante, but the lifestyle was not for her so moved to New York City to start a career as an artist and then later to California. Always living the bohemian artist life style, she played her guitar and sold artwork to pay her way to graduate school.
She earned her way in the computer art field landing a job with NBC developing their 2000 Olympics website.
The life of a big city girl was done for her when she realized her favorite Mexican food takeout

place knew her address and order from her voice on the phone. She moved upstate in 2003 and has been here since. She has taught courses in English at Hartwick and SUNY Oneonta, and is currently teaching business courses at SUNY Delhi and computer courses at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online.
Since moving north she says her writing has become more focused and she has found clarity in her lifestyle and career.
In addition to her reading at Green Toad, Carey’s poetry is featured on WUOW radio every Wednesday morning around 9 a.m.

Writer Jill Carey will
read at the Green Toad
on Thursday, Dec. 10.

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HOMETOWN People

AWARDS STAY HOME WITH OHS

OHS Tournament All-Star Sienna Wisse and Tournament MVP Erin Wolstenholme flank Tournament and OHS Gym namesake Anthony Drago as he presents them with their awards after the Yellowjackets 54-18 defeat of Gloversville on Saturday, Nov. 28 at home.

SHE’S TOPS:
The SUNY Athletic Conference has named SUNY Oneonta freshman Kayla Brantmeyer (Center Moriches/Center Moriches)as the Rookie of the Year for women’s soccer.

Dr. Annabi Djalo Joins Fox As Hospitalist

Dr. Annabi Djalo has joined Fox Memorial Hospital’s medical staff as a hospitalist.
Djalo, who is board certified in family medicine is a graduate of Ross University School of Medicine in Portsmouth, and completed his residency in Family Medicine at New York Medical College in Brooklyn /Queens. Most recently, he worked as an attending physician at Altru Health System/Lifecare in Roseau, Minn.

Oneontan Joins AmeriCorps,
Trained For Service Projects

Shawn Speller of Oneonta, deployed on Saturday, Nov. 14, to begin work on his first service project of the year with the National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), an AmeriCorps program.
Speller had arrived at NCCC’s Southwest Region Campus in Denver and began training on Wednesday, Oct. 14, for 10 months of full-time service with AmeriCorps NCCC. This training emphasized teamwork, leadership development, communication, service learning, and certification by the American Red Cross.
As a Corps Member, Speller will be responsible for completing a series of six- to eight-week-long service projects as part of a 10- to 12-person team. His first service project will end on Dec. 17, at which time his team will break for the winter holidays and begin a new project in a new location in January.
Before joining the NCCC, Speller graduated from Oneonta High School and attended Morrisville State College for two years. Speller said, “I have always been interested in volunteer service because I grew up helping others. It was my way of giving back to those who helped me along the way.”
Andre and Renee Alston are Shawn’s parents.

Bonnie Knapp Recognized:
Home Health Aide Of 2009

Bonnie Knapp, Home Care Inc. certified home health aide, received the Home Health Aide of the Year Award Nov. 4 in Albany from the Home Care Association of New York.
In honor of National Home Care Month, the winner of the HCA-NY annual award “recognizes a home health aide whose story provides a powerful example of the hard work, dedication and caring.”
Knapp joined At Home Care in 1997. Repeatedly, patients and families share testimony of Ms. Knapp’s impact on their lives.
Recently, one family member reported: “Bonnie is an exceptional home health aide – very compassionate and caring. We couldn’t have asked for a better aide during such a difficult time in our lives.”

Harlem Top Rookie At Hamilton College

Oneonta’s Madie Harlem, a freshman at Hamilton College in Clinton, was selected a women's basketball Co-Rookie of the Week by the Liberty League on Monday, Nov. 30.
Harlem recorded 6 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists and a game-high 4 steals in 22 minutes off the bench as Hamilton routed Morrisville State 76-43 on Tuesday, Nov. 24.
The win was the only game the Continentals played last week.
Harlem is averaging 8.3 points, 6.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 3.5 steals in four games this season.

Nancy Mitchell Certified Yoga Trainer

Nancy Bresee Mitchell has completed Level Five of the YogaFit® Yoga Teacher Training program to become a member of Yoga Alliance of 21,000 registered yoga teachers worldwide.
Currently, she teaches two sections of “Yoga Exercises for Fitness and Health” in SUNY Oneonta’s phys-ed department. In Cooperstown, she instructs Spin/Yoga classes at Clark Sports Center and Gentle Yoga Exercises” at Woodside Hall, LLC assisted living facility.
Mitchell also holds classes in her own Pleasant Valley Yoga Studio in Milford at her Purple Cow Ranch, where she resides with her husband, George, a Labradoodle named Ikey, and two old horses.

LECTURE: Hartwick College Associate Professor of Business Administration Scott Dalrymple will discuss “’An Open Letter to Earth’ and Other Stories” during the next installment of the Faculty Lecture Series at 4 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 4, in Eaton Lounge, Bresee Hall, on the College campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.

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Editorial

Bresee’s Exemplified An Oneonta Tradition – Excellence

Don’t you appreciate a job well done, whatever the job may be?
For instance, aren’t you in awe everytime you go to the Neptune Diner? It’s huge and spotless. Look at the size of that menu; and everything’s good.
Or, for another instance, the answering machine at SUNY Oneonta. It’s the best. You quickly access the voice-recognition feature and – miracle of miracles – it recognizes the name of the person you are trying to reach, (even if you slur a bit.)
Likewise the efficiency of Eastman Associates, which removed the false front from the former Bresee’s the other weekend in just 9 1/2 hours, (although owner Rick Eastman was shooting for 8 even.) It was like watching a ballet.
•
But it’s only appropriate that everything associated with Bresee’s be done in a first-rate manner.
First, a decade after it closed, the department store, with its attendant Health Bar, is foremost in the affection of many Oneontans. Ask anyone.
Second, Bresee’s was peerless during the heyday of department stores – not an easy goal.
All these years later, you can sense – in the reflections of Phil Bresee – the attention to detail that was the management credo.
The facade – cutting edge when it was installed in 1959 – was a piece of it: 24 500-watt floodlights lit up the 54-foot-tall aluminum front, which concealed loud speakers; the music intended for the pleasure of passersby.
Rick Eastman attested to the intricate and solid infrasture that held the new front to the old building: Blow wind, blow, it wasn’t going anywhere.
Bresee’s installed the city’s first escalator. It was among the first local businesses to use computers for inventory control, going back to 1949. Its scale-model train carried joyful youngsters around the store each Christmas season.
“The store continually and irrepressibly bubbles with special events, fresh ideas, new setting for old themes,” reported STORES, the National Retail Merchants Association’s magazine.
Bresee’s success, clearly, didn’t just happen.
•
If you get a chance to tour Mike Manno’s Apple Converting in the Pony Farm Business Park, do it. That’s one latter-day example of attention to detail. The newly installed $7 million press – it prints intricate wrappers for fancy candy – is pristine.
Likewise, Ioxus’ new ultracapacitor plant: You imagine you’re on the Starship Enterprise. Or Geoff Smith’s Medical Coaches.
We could go on. The point is, there is a tradition of excellence here – a tradition that lives.
And quality creates positive spinoffs, although they can be hard to measure. The other day, for instance, Bruno Talevi, the retired CPA, remarked Bresee’s made such a positive impression on him 54 years ago it help convince him to move here and open his practice.
Even in these times of economic challenge, we can look around us and say, Oneonta’s got the mindset to make good things happen.

Ernie Palmquist shows a group of Bresee’s shoppers one of the animal cars in Ernie’s Circus. Palmquist carved all the figures for the wooden Circus – a feature showpiece in Bresee’s annual Circus.

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Letters

Deer Ticks, Source of Lyme Disease, More Evident

To the Editor:
The recent collection of adult specimens of Ixodes scapularis Say, the black-legged tick (also called the deer tick) in local state forests may indicate that this species, the principle vector of Lyme Disease, is becoming more widely distributed in the area.
If individual ticks feed on the white-footed mouse, a common host of immature stages, the potential for movement is in hundreds of feet. Adult ticks feeding on the white-tail deer may be carried for 1-3 miles, while those attached to a deer hunter may be transported from 5-150+ miles by car.
Effective repellents are readily available and should be used by hunters! Products containing DEET in concentrations of 15 percent or higher can be applied to exposed skin and to fabric for protection up to several hours per application.
Clothing can be treated with Permethrin, which when properly applied can provide long-term protection, which can remain effective through two normal laundry cycles.
Careful inspection of the body at the end of each day of exposure and careful removal of any attached individuals should be a regular precautionary measure. Pathogen transmission appears to occur only when ticks have fed to repletion, which requires several hours.

WILLIAM BUTTS
SUNY Biological Field Station

Many Made Hogwarts & Hartwick Possible

To the Editor:
The Oneonta World of Learning would like to thank the Oneonta community in their ongoing support.
On Oct. 18, Jason Curley and the Hartwick College Nusic Department, along with the Catskill Valley Wind Ensemble and the Hartwick College professors, along with the First United Methodist Church held Hogwarts & Hartwick feast and concert.
This event was attended by over 100 people, raising more than $650 for the Oneonta World of Learning.
We are grateful to the following groups and organizations:
• Dr. Jason Curley from Hartwick College, and FUMC’s Jeff Gardner and Lisa Jo Bezner specifically for dreaming and delivering this fabulous event.
• Hartwick College Music Department – Dr. Diane Paige, Lynda Clark and other staff and students for assisting with public relations, coordinating entertainment, decorating, cooking, serving and cleaning.
• The Youth of First United Methodist Church for providing prizes and assembling and decorating gift bags.
• Hartwick College faculty and friends for representing the Hogwarts professors and sponsoring dinner for five needy families.
• Catskill Valley Wind Ensemble and Hartwick College Wind Ensemble for generously providing enchanting music.
• Generous donations of gifts and prizes from individuals and local businesses.
As an organization that is dedicated to enriching the lives of children and their grown-ups through play, we rely heavily on the support of the local community.
We are extremely appreciative of those organizations that can recognize the importance of our mission and can understand the impact that we will have in this community.
With the continued support of organizations such as Hartwick College, First United Methodist Church and others, The Oneonta World of Learning will thrive and enrich the Oneonta community.
Thanks again to Jason Curley, Hartwick College and The First United Methodist church. We are grateful.

AARON SORENSEN
Oneonta

Labels: 12-04-09, Letters to the Editor

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HOMETOWN History

Compiled By Tom Heitz
Courtesy of
New York State Historical Association

125 Years Ago

The collection for the poor at the union service Thanksgiving Day was $23.76. Several articles of wearing apparel have since been donated which were thankfully received and have been distributed by Mrs. Mears and Mrs. William Bissell, with whom contributions of money or clothing for distribution among the needy (many of whom we have with us this winter) should be left.
December 1884

100 Years Ago

The Local News – The Central Hotel on Tuesday began serving a business man’s lunch in the new café. The luncheon is served from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and consists of soup, meats, vegetables, salads, dessert, tea and coffee – a first-class, ready-to-serve meal, for which the price is only 35 cents. Do not forget the indoor baseball game, which will be held December 8th at the Armory. The contestants are Company G and a New York team in which two the members are Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants’ in the National Baseball League and Hal Chase of the New York Yankees in the American Baseball League. The section of macadam state road from the Plains Corners to the old village line on Chestnut Street has been completed and thrown open to the public. There is now a continuous stretch of macadam from the city of Oneonta to Otego, a distance of eight miles.
December 1909

80 Years Ago

Michael Pizza, a sophomore at Hartwick College, Oneonta, died Friday morning of last week at the Lourdes Hospital at Binghamton as the result of injuries received Wednesday afternoon when the Ford coach in which he and a party of students were going to their homes for the Thanksgiving recess skidded on the wet macadam two miles from Deposit and rolled down a fifteen-foot embankment. Pizza’s back was broken. His home was in Brooklyn. Douglas Conklin, another sophomore and an honor student, a three letter man in 1928 and captain of the basketball team for 1929, and William Hitchcock, captain of the 1929 football team, both of Deposit, were occupants of the car but escaped with minor injuries. Miss Caroline Pelton of Monticello and Miss Alice Weidegreen of Deposit, both students at the Oneonta Normal School, were also members of the party and are suffering from bruises and shock.
December 1929

60 Years Ago

The Rev. Paul Gerrard Jackson, Bible lecturer and impersonator, will present his program of “Gospel Life Portraits” at 7:30 p.m. December 4th through 10th at the First Baptist Church, Oneonta. At each service, Mr. Jackson selects a Biblical or historical character and by his powers of impersonation makes this character “come to life.” On successive nights, he appears as the Apostle John, Pontius Pilate, and one of the Roman soldiers who crucified Christ. Other characterizations include the old innkeeper of Bethlehem, and such historical figures as Martin Luther and John Bunyan. Mr. Jackson’s impersonations are given in full costume with interpretive lighting effects and music.
December 1949

40 Years Ago

Back for his second season with the Hartwick College Warriors, Coach Roy Chipman will take the basketball team into a season-opening, Saturday night contest at Ithaca College with the expectation that the outcome will provide a key to the entire season. “We’ve looked good, even great at times during our practices and we’ve had some good scrimmages,” Chipman said. But we’ve shown some weaknesses on defense, particularly inside. Our season’success depends on how we correct those weaknesses.” Pete Arnold and Steve Wright, one of the most prolific scorers in Hartwick College history, are both gone, and Chipman will be counting on Marty Kenney and Ed Craumer to fill their shoes. Inside, Chipman’s probable starters are 6’6” Mike Reed, 6’4” Reed Hoffer and 6’4” Joe Cullen. Coming off the bench will be 6’6” Tim Devore and Dave Lemanczyk at 6’4”. Neal Miller, a sophomore who saw action in five varsity games last year as a freshman will also play inside. Other reserves include sophomores Fred Lian, Joe Leon, and Don Chemotti.
December 1969

20 Years Ago

Supporters of both sides in the polarized anti-abortion, pro-life vs. pro-choice debate came out for rallies on Main Street in Oneonta this weekend. A pro-choice gathering estimated at more than 120 persons came to the band stand Saturday afternoon to hear speakers explain why abortion should remain any woman‘s legal right. About 75 pro-life advocates came to the event as well in an attempt to counteract the pro-choice speakers. As local speakers delivered their messages the pro-life supporters sang hymns and carried signs.
December 1989

10 Years Ago

Governor George E. Pataki announced last Friday that he had signed domestic violence protection legislation strengthening enforcement of orders of protection issued in matrimonial cases, including allowing same-day orders of protection and authorizing judges to impound firearms.
December 1999

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OTHER VOICES

In Unity, Professionalism

Editor’s Note: James McCartney, president, New York State University Police Officers Union, called for uniting the 28 campus forces into a single entity at a SUNY public hearing Nov. 17. This is an exerpt from his testimony.

Previously, I testified before you and I stated that the New York State University Police needed to be a centralized agency. I provided you with documentation that I will once again provide today; documentation that will show how centralizing the University Police will save SUNY money and streamline police services.
It is my intention to demonstrate through my testimony how the State University Police Department is unnecessarily hemorrhaging money, and supporting an environment which is systematically inefficient and inconsistent with the accepted practices of modern day professional policing.
Additionally, I will provide for the board solutions to these problems, which will show a substantial monetary savings for the State.
...The State University of New York currently utilizes a model of policing which opens itself to managerial redundancy, inefficiency, financial waste, erroneous crime reporting, and difficulty in maintaining a consistent professional standard.
With the State of New York facing billions of dollars in deficit, this financial crisis has trickled its way down to our great institution of higher learning known as SUNY. SUNY is being faced with a $90 million budget deficit.
Enough is enough. The time has come to streamline SUNY’s police services and stop cutting the funding of our future – the students of New York State. The New York State University Police Officers Union has documentation which shows that SUNY can save almost $3 million by restructuring its police services and adopting the same police model of service currently being used by the New York State Trooper’s, Park Police, Environmental Conservation Police, Corrections and Forest Ranger Police.
These other agencies use a single centralized model of law enforcement, unlike the decentralized 28 separate models that SUNY utilizes. SUNY’s University Police model is a system that is ultimately costing our tax payers and students millions of dollars.
The New York State University Police Officers Union urges the SUNY Board of Trustees to establish a committee for the purpose of exploring the administrative and financial benefits of having a centralized model of policing for the New York State University Police.
We urge the Board of Trustees to create a centralized SUNY Police model that would streamline police services, reduce unnecessary financial waste, and eliminate managerial overkill.
We urge the Board of Trustees to consider the implementation of a singular SUNY Police Commissioner’s Office, appointed by the Chancellor; a police commissioner who would be charged with overseeing the day-to-day operation of our police agency, with full authority to make the necessary changes to carry out the mission of the State University Police.
We ask the Board of Trustees to help us help you, and help the current and future students of New York State.

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In Memoriam

Phillip E. Hobb, 63; Worked On Railroads

ONEONTA – Phillip Edwin Hobb, 63, of Oneonta, who spent his career at a railroad electrician, passed away at his home on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009, with his family by his side.
He was born on Jan. 25, 1946, in Syracuse, to John W. Hobb Sr. and Esther M. (Schaff) Hobb.
Phillip served in the Air Force during the Vietnam era.
He was an electrician for New York Central, Penn Central, Conrail and CSX Railroads. He was a member of and served as chairman for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union, Local 770.
He was an avid Yankees fan and loved baseball in general, spending many happy hours at Damaschke Field.
Phillip is survived by his wife, Rolana Starr Hobb of Oneonta; his children, Wendy Michelle Vienneau (John) of Rensselaer, Michael Adam Hobb (Alisa) of Albany County, Kendra Monique Baker (Frederic) of Coxsackie, and Kimberly Michelle Lucas of Denver, Colo.; his grandchildren, Kris Alan Ward Jr., Matthew Shane Ward and Jerek Brian Hobb; brothers, John W. Hobb Jr., Richard Hobb, and Dennis Hobb; a sister, Mary (Hobb) Clark; many nieces, nephews, and other extended family.
Phillip was predeceased by his parents; his first wife, Sandra Leigh (Royce) Hobb and his grandson, Kristopher Phillip Ward.
A private service will be held at the convenience of the family.
Memorial donations may be made to Catskill Area Hospice & Palliative Care.
The Lewis, Hurley & Pietrobono Funeral Home handled the arrangements.

Libby Akulin, 74; Worked On ‘Small World’

COOPERSTOWN – Libby Block Akulin, 74, an R.N. at Bassett Hospital who worked on the “It’s A Small World” exhibit for the 1964 World’s Fair that is still on exhibit at DisneyWorld, lost her battle with pancreatic cancer at home in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009. Her family was by her side.
Libby was born in Philadelphia on July 3, 1935, to Harry and Bella Block. She married Donald Akulin, on June 27, 1953.
The “It’s a Small World” attraction, at the World’s Fair Pepsi pavilion, featured animated dolls and animals frolicking in a spirit of international unity on a boat-ride around the world to the Sherman Brothers’ song.
Before returning to school for a nursing degree, she was a Girl Scout Leader of the Year and an Eastern Star Worthy Matron. She worked in labor and delivery for many years at Bassett, then became a hospice nurse for Wissahickon Hospice in Philadelphia from 1996 until the end.
More than anything else, her family remembers her as a loving wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, friend, nurse and very special person.
Survivors include her husband, her children, Lynne Kaufman and her husband Harvey, of Miami, Faye Munson and her husband Rick, of Oneonta, Kevin Akulin and Susan Jungclaus of Quakertown, Pa., and Beth Akulin of Oneonta; granddaughters Shannon and Michele Munson, and Bayla Akulin and great-granddaughter Niesa Davidson, all of Oneonta; two older sisters, Minya Yudenfriend and her husband Herbert, of Penn Valley, Pa., and Sherry Goldberg and her husband Ed, of Utica; an aunt, Ann Ross, and numerous nieces, nephews and cousins.
She was predeceased by her parents and younger sister, Etta Davis of Sandy Springs, Ga.
A graveside service was held Friday, Nov. 27, in Philadelphia. Memorial donations may be made cancer research or your local hospice in Libby’s memory.

Labels: 12-04-09, In Memoriam, Obituaries

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