As recently retired lifelong educators, my wife and I visited the beautiful village of Cooperstown and fulfilled a lifelong dream to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame. We enjoyed good food, friendly and helpful people and the beauty of your city.

In our motel room, we read with interest the discussion about the parking issue in Cooperstown. We commented that it may be interesting to attend the town meeting. Little did we know how we would be personally impacted by your parking laws.

The next morning, we pulled into a parking place, headed to the Hall of Fame and enjoyed the wonderful memorabilia of the exhibits. We shopped for about an hour after our HOF visit and returned to our car. We had parked for two hours and 35 minutes. We were shocked to find an over-time parking ticket for $35 on our windshield.

We were disappointed and our visit was certainly tainted because of your unreasonable city ordinance. Posting of two-hour parking signs should be much more explicit and frequent in order to catch the eye of your visitors. A parking meter alternative would immediately inform the visiting public about expected fees and time limits.

We would suggest that most tourists will spend far more than two hours in the Hall of Fame and enjoying the shops on your Main Street. A two-hour parking limit is simply unreasonable.

Do you really want to chase people away after two hours or would you rather encourage them to stay and enjoy the ambiance and charm of downtown Cooperstown?

We understand the need for city infrastructure and we are willing to pay our fair share. However, gouging well-meaning tourists is not the way to support your city needs.

Use meters, paid parking lots, add a dollar fee to every hotel room rented in the village, increase the bed and booze tax or something. But, a $35 overtime parking ticket should be going, going, gone!

Robert Kiner

Sioux Falls, S.D.

The show

must go on

Dear Art Enthusiasts,

On behalf of the Cooperstown Art Association, I am happy to announce the long-awaited repair of the skylights and roof encompassing Gallery A, our large downstairs gallery, and the foyer. This work, although somewhat anticipated, has put the gallery in an understandable state of upheaval and has meant a reorganization of shows.

For those of you who were anticipating the Oakroom Artists exhibit for the month of October in Gallery A: their exhibit has been rescheduled for fall 2008. Bob DiPaola’s solo show of photography, "The Full Monty," will go on as planned in Gallery B, as will "Scratching the Surface" in the ballroom Gallery C.

The shows must go on! Looking ahead and anticipating a two-month construction period moves the Holiday Member Show & Sale up to the ballroom Gallery C, and our annual fundraiser, Adorn-a-Door, in our space leading up to Gallery C.

We appreciate your understanding and support, and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. It is all worth it for a watertight, beautiful sky-lit gallery space in Cooperstown!

Janet G. Erway

Director

CAA

Vote Balcom for Supervisor

Thank you to The Daily Star and Cooperstown Crier for coverage of our local election in Hartwick and other small communities.

On Nov. 6, in the Town of Hartwick, Mary Balcom will be running for town supervisor. Dave Butler and Lynn A. Green are running for town councilor.

Mary has had 25 years experience in town government. Over the years, Mary has been our town clerk, town councilman and town supervisor. The opposing candidate does not have this experience.

Mary Balcom and the town board have accomplished many different things. The Hartwick water project was a large and involved undertaking. The need for this project was inevitable. The infrastructure was deteriorated. The old system was installed in 1800 and needed to be replaced.

Mary Balcom and the town board’s persistence helped to obtain a grant of $570,000 to help defray the cost of the project. The water district does not have to pay this back. Quite a savings!

Other accomplishments include improvements to the ball field, a new basketball court for the youth of our town and sidewalks, support for our two fire companies, the library, highway department and making sure the town runs smoothly.

Mary Balcom and the town board are working on a Comprehensive Plan for the development and vision of our town. A random survey was distributed throughout the town for the purpose of acquiring opinions from the people we represent.

Mary Balcom is running on the Independent ticket. Dave Butler is running on the Republican ticket. Lynn A. Green is running on the Democratic ticket.

Please help us to keep this qualified team together.

Eileen Barown

Mount Vision

Barown is a Hartwick Town councilor.

Cooperation needed with reval

Admittedly, I was rather confused upon reading recent published articles concerning the Village/ Town revaluations. After checking with what I consider credible sources, I commend the Cooperstown Crier for their story "Reval deal made" in the Sept. 27 edition. Having the Village and Town work together to get the best reval for its residents is a welcome development and shows that there can be regional cooperation in the best interest of the taxpayers.

I commend both the Village and Town boards for realizing that it makes more sense to work together to achieve an end product than to keep on their separate paths. May these collaborative efforts continue!

Thank you Cooperstown Crier editor Jim Austin for what I perceive is an accurate rendition of what transpired between these two units of government.

Rich McCaffery

Cooperstown

Parking thoughts

There seems to be little doubt that paid parking is coming to Cooperstown. The lure of a revenue stream capable of bringing somewhere between $200,000 and $1,000,000 cannot, given the sad state of the village’s infrastructure, be ignored. It is not a question of if, or even when, but rather a question of how paid parking will become a part of the village’s being.

As presented to the public, the law and its attendant resolution would appear to be a quantum leap from the relative bliss of no paid parking to a system of paid parking that seemingly places the burden of generating revenue from parking squarely on the shoulders of the village’s tourists, while allowing local residents, as well as employees of the Main Street business district, a virtual pass on paying in any substantial way to park. Ah ... welcome to Cooperstown, the most perfect village with paid parking.

And while the plan as presented will undoubtedly raise some amount of money, one has to ask, given the numbers of cars parking, on a regular basis, on the streets outside the Main Street Business District, why it is only the tourists who are being targeted to fund this new revenue stream for the village? Do the vehicles driven by tourists place more pressure on the village’s infrastructure than do the vehicles driven by those employed at Bassett Healthcare, those attending church in the village, those conducting business at the county buildings, or those picking up and dropping off children at school? It is difficult to know exactly how that would be the case. Parking is parking whether it is in the Main Street Business District or somewhere else in the rest of the village.

Yet, the paid parking plan does not seem to be concerned in any way in having anyone using the streets as parking lots be part of the plan except the tourists. Everyone else who parks on

the streets of Cooperstown gets a free pass, except, of course, for the locals who choose to pay $10 to avoid actually paying for parking in the Main Street Business District. However, anyone else who comes into the village and parks exclusively outside the Main Street Business District will not be part of the village’s new found revenue stream.

As a result, since there is a good possibility that there are as many cars parking outside the Main Street Business District as are parking within the district, the village is only targeting something in the neighborhood of 50 percent of those using the village streets for parking. One cannot help but ask why?

After all, the probability of those parking in the Main Street Business District frequenting a store or restaurant that pays property taxes to the village would seem to be quite high. Granted the tourist may come to the village to visit the tax-exempt Hall of Fame, but in the process of doing so also visits the other offerings in the Main Street Business District. On the contrary, many of those parking outside the Main Street Business District do so because of entities in the village which are wholly tax-exempt. Why then does the village focus its efforts on generating funds from those parkers who directly impact the payment of village taxes, while ignoring those parkers who do not. If there is indeed value in the parking available in the Main Street Business District, is there not also value in the parking throughout the rest of the village? If the village feels that parking should not be given away within the Main Street Business District, why is it willing to give it away elsewhere in the village where it seems to be in equal demand?

And while it seems obvious that the village is intent on having paid parking in place for the next tourist season, it is possible that instead of diving headlong into the current plan, it might be advisable to recall that the initial thinking on paid parking was to start with the Doubleday Field Parking Lot and get a feel for the project before rushing the paid parking onto Main and Pioneer Streets. According to information given at a recent public information meeting on paid parking, it would seem that paid parking could be implemented in the Doubleday Field lot with a great deal less initial outlay, $14,000 instead of $100,000.00, for the pay and display machines alone.

And starting with just the Doubleday Field parking lot in 2008, would give the village time to perhaps reinstate a parking committee which could in turn look at the total parking picture within the village with a broader perspective. The result would, hopefully, be a clearer assessment of the total parking picture which would, in turn, produce an equitable system of paid parking that does not place the burden solely on the shoulders of the tourists. Granted, the tourists are part of the parking picture. But they are not the total picture and should not be treated as if they are. It may indeed be time for paid parking in Cooperstown. But it is time for paid parking only if it is uniformly and equitably assessed for all those wishing to park in the village without regard for their reason for doing so.

Catherine Lake Ellsworth

Cooperstown

Other ways to make money

Being fairly a newcomer to the area, July 1930, I find it very amusing as to what the "Johnny Come Latelys" are trying to do to Cooperstown. People come here to settle because they like the peace and quiet of the quaint little village. Now they are trying to change everything to the big city life, with parking meters and paid parking. If I remember right, this was tried years ago and didn’t work. In case you don’t remember, Bassett Healthcare tried paid parking, which proved to be a disaster.

If the Village is looking for ways to make money, have the local police committee look at the New York State V&T Law Book. Below are just a few laws that could be enforced:

1. 1152-c _ Pedestrian crossing diagonally (jaywalking).

2. 1156-a _ Pedestrians fail to use sidewalks.

3. 1160-b _ Improper left turn (two-way street).

4. 1160-c _ Improper U-turn.

5. 1163-a _ Improper U-turn without signal.

6. 1163-b _ Fail to signal for turn.

7. 1172-a _ Fail to stop, stop sign.

8. 1225-c _ Use of mobile telephones.

All of the above are subject to fines of $0 to $150 plus a $55 surcharge by the State of New York.

Somebody urged the people to use the parking lots outside of town. What happens when the trolleys stop running? There are 15-minute parking signs in front of the post office and Key Bank. Go inside, and the only ones there are the employees. There should be more handicap spaces available, or a time limit on them.

I grew up in this town with only a couple of "cops." They spent much of their time on Main Street helping out. When a truck was unloading, they directed traffic around them until they were done unloading. Why can’t some of the "locals" do the same? This would put the badly needed spaces back. By the way, when was the last time anybody tried to get to the Village Office or Court Clerk? Lots of luck.

I forgot that the above laws can’t be used. Can’t do anything to offend the tourists visiting this quaint little village.

Raymond E. Burr

Cooperstown

Ending the War

Many folks have grown weary of the futility of our presence in Iraq. Seventy to ninety soldiers die per month and countless civilians. The American people are tired of hearing both the Republican drum beaters as well as the excuses the Democrats make in yielding to this President.

I have two initiatives on a blog. The first one is an outside the box solution to end this war and is a peaceful one. The other initiative addresses regaining confidence in the next Presidency and our Constitution. Visit the blog at: 2008electionnews.blogspot.com

I did not write the blog for anything other than to offer an alternative to the gibberish out in the mainstream media.

Scott Noren DDS

Ithaca, NY