Nearly one hundred people got together on Wednesday night to determine a unified, utopian vision of Cooperstown's future.

Nan Stolzenburg, the consultant hired to complete a generic environmental impact study, or GEIS, for the village and the towns of Otsego and Middlefield, conducted two visioning exercises with local residents at Cooperstown Middle/High School last Wednesday night.

"A visual aesthetic is a big part of development," Stolzenburg said. The workshop was conducted with the purpose of defining a term she has heard again and again while conducting the survey - rural character.

"I hear this term repeatedly," said Stolzenburg. "But what does rural character mean to you?"

People were broken up into groups of eight and instructed about the two visioning exercises aimed at determining what the people of Cooperstown and surrounding areas want. Everyone wrote a few words about their visions on post-it notes and stuck them to a large sheet of paper.

Categories recurred from person to person and group to group. Common themes were the preservation of the environment, improvement of prospects to keep young people in the area, preventing increase of traffic and keeping development in check. Once the post-its were stuck to the paper, groups worked together to categorize them, then to compose sentences stemming from the themes.

Group four, for example, was composed of a variety of people from all walks of life. Rachel Ainslie-Hamblin is a garlic farmer. Hugh MacDougall is a local historian. Emery Harmon is a retired doctor. Dave Morris a real estate broker. Bill Rigby runs a mail order business. Tom Pritchard has been on the Hartwick town planning board for two decades and Greg Crowell was there because, having grown up in Cape Cod in the fifties and sixties, he has "seen the effects of uncontrolled growth on a community."

Once the groups had determined thematic sentences, a spokesperson from each stood and read them aloud in the packed cafeteria. Stolzenburg said at the start that no idea was bad and that an atmosphere of mutual respect was necessary. Even when people announced unrealistic plans for the future, like child care and parking for all, nobody heckled or snickered. The general concensus was that the "Cooperstown of the future," would be a clean, safe place with entertainment for all ages, bike trails and a preserved, pedestrian Main Street under a starry sky.

Following this exercise, a slide show was given with the purpose of determining the preferred aesthetic of the citizens.

Stolzenburg said, "I can tell you right now there's going to be a picture of a McDonald's in there. It doesn't matter whether or not you think there should be a McDonald's in Cooperstown. What I'm asking is: do you like the look of the place?"

Responses to each slide were recorded on a grid, with a scale of negative to positive five. There was no discussion as people looked at the slides and rated them.

"The slides will be taken from other areas, not from here," Stolzenburg said, meaning that the audience would not be asked to make determinations about development that has already taken place in Cooperstown or surrounding areas.

Residential, agricultural and commercial properties were shown, although there was little aesthetic variation from one image to the next. While the images ranged from strip malls to old-fashioned garages and townships, there was little remarkable architecture or variety in the shots. Nothing was presented that would be completely innovative, since there are already strip-mall style sites, like The Commons in Hartwick, and more rustic and charming small businesses.

At the end of the evening, people were asked to hold up one of three colored cards. Red symbolized a belief that the visions presented did not jive with those of the individual holding the card. Green meant: yes, I agree, and yellow was an intermediary indicator. A sea of green was lightly punctuated with yellow. Not a single red card was held in the air.

Afterwards, Vincent Russo, owner of Mickey's Place on Main Street, said that he wasn't sure how it would be possible to go from the dream of a perfect future Cooperstown to a reality.

"For all the people who don't want this to be Disneyworld, there are a lot of people here living in fantasyland," said Russo.

Local officials said they were pleased with the turnout.

"It's great to see such a turnout, and I thought the program was excellent," said Cooperstown mayor Wendell Tripp.

Stolzenburg said that images deemed very pleasing or displeasing as a result of the survey will be included in her report, due out by the end of February. She said that the purpose of the GEIS is not to assist in the creation of a design standard, but rather to determine an aesthetic of spacing and functionality for farms and residences. In a visual preference survey, said Stolzenburg, setting is more important than architecture.

"If people are really interested in pinning down architectural preferences, we can do this again," said Stolzenburg. "I have literally hundreds of slides. Choosing them is difficult. The GEIS is not a comprehensive plan. It isn't used to set policy."

Stolzenburg said she has seen communities take a greater initiative towards reaching their common goals once those goals are articulated.

Otsego County planning director Diane Carlton said that Cooperstown, Otsego and Hartwick tried last year to secure funding for an intermunicipal comprehensive plan, but it fell through.

"We're going to try for a grant again," said Carlton. "It's important to work out a regional plan because planning successfully for the future includes examining issues that don't stop at a town's borderline. The GEIS is a great process and it needs to be done."

Gates said that the community can offer input at a public meeting following completion of Stolzenburg's report.