Budget Update

A couple of news items from the Budget Review Committee's meeting last Wednesday afternoon:

The Elm Park Church Senior Meals site will remain in operation at least through March 31.  The extension was granted to keep the change from occurring in the difficult winter months, and to allow the Director of the Office for the Aging, Frances Wright, more time to find a more appropriate solution than Nader Towers/242 Main.  It will also provide some time for the Elm Park folks to consider lowering the rent - something is better than nothing.  This is all good news, but good news with a time limit.  Stay tuned, and keep communicating with Board members.

Secondly, $35,000 was added to the Otsego County contribution to Cornell Cooperative Extension, raising that contribution from, I believe, $125,000 to $160,000.

Noone on the Board doubts the importance of agriculture to the past, present and future of Otsego County.  The question is, how do we encorage and support this industry as effectively as possible?  Without a comprehensive plan, of course, we have no idea.  So the funding of CCE has become a controversial hot potato, and our contribution has ebbed and flowed with the political winds (sorry about the mixed metaphor).

I think we need to do everything we can to grow our agricultural sector.  CCE is in that business, and they've gone a fair way toward proving that they can be effective.  Further funding will enable us to re-subscribe to the CNY Dairy and Field Crop Team, and to hire a local Ag Educator to focus on dairy and field crop issues.  With the possible resurgence of hops as a sustainable crop, we should do everything we can to encourage and support this initiative.

In the 19th century, Otsego County was the center of the hops world; most of America's hops were grown here and in surrounding counties.  No reason we can't do it again:  we've got the same land, the same determined work ethic, and all we might need is some help remembering how to do it. 

Update:  I forgot to add this caveat:  the budget is still in draft form and can be changed by Board action.  The next whole Board budget meeting is Friday, November 21, at 1:00PM in the Board chambers in the County Office Building in Cooperstown.  If' you've got something to say about the budget, join us.