COOP M IA
1808 BY
DG
E WIL
L
Cooperstown’s offiCial newspaper
JU
E
OUNDED
IN
R
•F
founded in 1808
2002 ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT takes on added significance, page 4 VISIT www.ALLOTSEGO.com, OTSEGO COUNTY’S NEWSPAPER/ONLINE Volume 217, No. 34
Cooperstown, New York, Thursday, August 21, 2025
Newsstand Price $1
Legal Internship Wraps Up Pilot Program TRUCK
at the
ll i M r e d i C k e e r Fly CSept. 7, Noon - 7
Sunday,
By BILL BELLEN
F
OTSEGO COUNTY or years, New York State has been faced with a compounding legal conundrum. It is well known that there is a severe imbalance in the citizento-lawyer ratio between rural and urban regions of the state. Out of the roughly 1,700 legal aid attorneys in New York, fewer than 500 serve residents outside of New York City, Buffalo and Rochester. Hamilton
County is particularly affected by this negative distribution, with only 19 attorneys serving the entire county. A single case involving the Department of Social Services removing children from a home could occupy up to 14 of these attorneys, leading to a serious backup in the courts’ ability to administer legal justice. These statistics were shared in the opening of a briefing to the New York State Unified Court System from Associate Court Attorney Sarah Cowen upon the conclusion of the
pilot for the state’s Rural Pathways Program. Brainchild of Cowen herself, the initiative launched this year in partnership between the state courts and numerous bar associations in Otsego, Clinton, and St. Lawrence counties. The program began on June 2, lasting six weeks and offering two law students that have completed their second year of schooling (rising 3Ls) per each of the three counties the opportunity for a legal internship. Continued on page 11
Airport Expansion Plans Prompt Neighborly Concern: Part One By BILL BELLEN
O
ONEONTA ver the last month, the Albert S. Nader Regional Airport has garnered increasing public attention due to ongoing refurbishment and expansion efforts. Though seemingly just recently reentering the public consciousness, the airport has an extensive history dating back nearly 60 years. As detailed by plaques dedicated by the Greater Oneonta Historical Society within the airport’s main terminal, the runway first opened for service on September 17, 1966. The airport has graduated many pilots, even serving as the site where two astronauts acquired their skills in aviation. 1988 saw the ribbon-cutting of an extension to the runway in order to accommodate more modern jets of the time. In 2016, plans began to come together involving further improvements that members of the Airport Commission—the designated body responsible for representing the INSIDE ► EXPANSION OF AIRPORT WORRIES NEIGHBORS, page 2
airport—deemed necessary. This is where we find the airport today. Progress involving these initiatives remained relatively stagnant until the arrival of the newest chair and vice chair of the commission, Martijn Kamerbeek and Justin Osterhoudt. Since their arrival roughly two and half years ago, the pair have been working closely together to push on with the agenda that has been in the works since 2016. “For every project we do here, there’s several steps,” Kamerbeek explained. “We need to do a design…then we need to do an environmental study to make sure that what we’re changing is not impacting the environment. We need to get funding from the [Federal Aviation Administration] and then from the local government from the City of Oneonta, and then we need to execute it. Those projects take years. So you need to keep on it. You need to be in it for the long run. None of these projects are one and done. Continued on page 11
Making a Joyful Noise
Photo provided
MORRIS—The dedication of the Zion Episcopal Church All Saints Chapel on Sunday, August 31 will feature organist Jacob Morris Friedman. Further details on page 6.
Interpreters Offer Printing Insight, Newspaper Legacies
two to three people, depending on the time of year. Connor Davidson, qualiCOOPERSTOWN fied interpreter and printing enthusiast, ► OLA AWARDS KECK FOR or 217 years, “The primarily staffs the printing office due LONGTIME LAKE SERVICE, Freeman’s Journal” has been to his extensive training and historical page 3 Cooperstown’s newspaper, background knowledge. ► BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR sharing notable local happenings to “In order to print anything around SPOTTED LANTERNFLY, generation after generation of famithe middle of the 19th century, you page 3 lies that call this area home. Today, [would] have to set up every single as small, locally-owned newspapers ► WATERSHED PROTECTION word of anything that’s printed, using PLAN MEETING IS. AUG. 27, struggle, we take for granted the movable type,” Davidson explained. page 4 ease of computerized printing and “So that is individual letters cast digitally-accessible news to spread out of an alloy of lead, antimony and ► OFFICE OF AGING TO HOLD the word each week in a much more TAI CHI CLASSES, page 6 Photo by Maria Griswold tin…In a rural place like this, printers accessible manner than ever before. The Fenimore Farm and Country Village print shop displays its would order that equipment before ► PLACES TO GO, THINGS TO However, things were not always so “modern prints” of the content from “The Freeman’s Journal” they could even set up shop. It’s someDO, PEOPLE TO SEE, page 12 simple. dating back to 1845. thing that requires a lot of investment These intricate complexities of a before anything begins…Every single Follow Breaking News On office of the “Otsego Herald,” a now centu- letter of every word of every sentence of bygone era are exhibited to a tee at the Fenimore Farm and Country Village’s ries-defunct rival publication of “The Continued on page 11 printing office. Modeled after the printing Freeman’s Journal,” the facility is staffed by By BILL BELLEN
F
THE FREEMAN’S JOURNAL & HOMETOWN ONEONTA, OTSEGO COUNTY’S AWARD-WINNING WEEKLIES 2010 WINNERS OF The Otsego County Chamber/KEY BANK SMALL BUSINESS AWARD