In February, almost a year after the first phase of Bassett's more than $50 million facilities management plan was approved by the village planning board, the hospital returned to the board with a plan to address a shortfall of parking for employees, patients and visitors.

The plan was based on a parking study that found the county's largest employer was short more than 200 spaces.

Additional patient parking would be made available immediately around the hospital and clinic, but there was no way to meet the employee demand in close proximity to the hospital, according to hospital vice-president Joe Middleton.

Instead, what Middleton and the hospital proposed was a partnership with the village to create an off-site combination parking lot/visitor center off Rte. 28 south of the village.

The proposal, Middleton said could solve parking needs for the hospital and help Cooperstown handle the influx of hundreds of thousands of visitors each year who clog streets and make finding a parking space an almost daily battle in the summer.

Of all the options, the new off-site lot seemed best because, Middleton said in February, it is financially feasible, would reduce local traffic and allows for growth in patient parking at the hospital and clinic.

But in the five months since then, things have changed.

The owner and hospital could not come to terms for the acquisition of land for the visitor center/parking lot. Talk turned to the Linden Avenue extension as a possible site for the new lot, but it turns out the village doesn't own half the land it thought it did and the remainder is currently leased to Cooperstown Youth Baseball which is reluctant to relocate its playing field. The idea seemed to be getting bogged down in complications.

Last week the hospital submitted a new proposal which would meet parking requirements with the addition of lots on the hospital campus and create spaces in close proximity to where employees work.

The new plan, Middleton said, is a direct response to neighbors complaints.

Experience has demonstrated that a number of hospital employees eschew walking or riding a shuttle to parking at the Clark Sports Center in favor of leaving their automobiles on village streets - sometimes walking blocks to get to a street which has not yet been designated two-hour parking.

Some employees risk what is now a $20 ticket and shuffle cars every two hours just ahead of the return of the parking enforcement officers. In the past, hospital employees have been among the most notorious parking scofflaws, having run up parking fines totaling many hundreds of dollars.

With the new plan, the hospital appears to have done all it can to squeeze out additional parking spaces that are more convenient for employees than on-street parking. No amount of pleading or cajoling by hospital officials has convinced employees to seek parking some place other than residential streets, but convenience may do the trick.

The hospital's new proposal looks like a good one and we believe it stands the best chance to remedy its immediate parking problems.

It does not, however, address the continuing need for a broader solution to Cooperstown's parking problems.

Residents, business leaders and village officials must not let this band-aid for the hospital's parking problem slow progress toward a more encompassing remedy.