Estimates of the crowd that will be on hand at the Clark Sports Center have been running as high as 50,000. The last time a crowd anywhere near that size attended was 1999 when George Brett, Robin Yount and Nolan Ryan were inducted.

The mayor’s Induction planning committee met again last Friday where county tourism director Deb Taylor explained the county’s role in helping arrange peripheral parking for some of the thousands of cars expected to arrive for the annual event.

Taylor said she has four and perhaps a fifth landowner on or just off county route 26 who have agreed to provide parking. The four properties would accommodate between 2,500 and 3,000 vehicles.

The county board of representatives has agreed to contract with Birnie Bus to provide shuttle service between the remote lots and the induction site. The county will expect property owners to: make sure the parking area is mowed, provide an entrance and exit, staff the lot, and have portable jons and drinking water available. The county will recover its cost by billing the property owners a charge of approximately $7.20 for each car to cover the cost of the bus service. It is currently anticipated that visitors will be charged $20 to park.

``If they fill up, they stand to make a nice profit,’’ said village trustee Paul Kuhn.

Taylor said she is working on the contract and has to meet with county attorney Rodney Klafehn to get it finalized before going back to the property owners.

Village trustee Jeff Katz said he appreciated the board of representatives’ decision to handle the parking. ``It shows they know they need to be involved,’’ he said.

Once agreements are in place, Taylor said she wants to provide a map that can be used on websites and in other promotional materials. It would be better, she said, if everyone was using the same map to avoid any confusion for visitors.

Information concerning parking areas, food concessions, and traffic patterns will be included on the map to be developed by the Otsego County GIS Department.

Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce Director John Bullis said they are being inundated now with requests for more information from people who plan to come for the Induction and asked if there was a date when the map could be ready.

Committee members agreed to work toward having the map ready on June 15.

Taylor also commented that when the Boilermaker race is held in Utica there are 3,000 volunteers helping at the event.

``You have to think about that,’’ she said.

Mayor Waller asked trolley committee chairman Giles Russell if there would be problems with the trolley lots like the ones experienced during the recent Hall of Fame Game.

Russell said that what occurred was that the Otesaga had a group of Bentley automobile owners staying there and had them park their trailers in the yellow trolley lot which took up all the spaces. The red lot was quickly filled with employees and the blue lot south of the village was largely populated by hospital employees. It left very little room for visitors coming in the game.

``What’s the sense in having a trolley?’’ Waller asked.

Russell said the village owns only one of the lots and therefore he is not always able to control it, but assured that it will not happen again.

``We’ll get all three lots for the two days,’’ he said.

He also said the radio message that is broadcast to alert visitors to the location of the trolley parking lots will be changed for Induction to include directions to the peripheral lots.

Kuhn said he other village officials had taken inventory of the blue information signs in the village and found many of them working at cross purposes.

Some of the signs, he said were doing ``exactly the opposite of what we want’’ directing traffic to find parking in the center of the village.

``It’s been one of my pet peeves. We always add signs and never take them down,’’ Kuhn said.

The Hall of Fame is expecting approximately 200 tour buses and has made parking arrangements, but village police chief Diana Nicols said ``rogue’’ buses concern her.

Nicols said there has been talk about the possibility some hotels in Utica and Albany may be sending buses to the Induction, but have not contacted the Hall of Fame. The police chief said she is worried they will get into town and not know where to drop off passengers, park and then return to pick them up again.

``The ones we know of I’m not worried about. It’s the ones we don’t know about,’’ she sad.

Village Clerk Teri Barown said she had sent out 20 to 25 letters to not-for-profit organizations asking if they were interested in selling food and beverages and so far has received six positive responses.

Bruce Maxson, who is working on emergency response, said they have approximately half the number of people they need to staff the event.

Lyle Jones, of the Otsego County Office Emergency Management, said his big concern is the weather and figuring out the exact mechanics of ``pulling the plug’’ if it becomes necessary.

The committee plans to meet again Friday, June 15, at 10 a.m. in the village meeting room.