The Oneonta Common Council approved a budget amendment on Tuesday, March 18, reinstating $60,000 for a summer downtown economic support campaign aimed at boosting foot traffic on Main and Water streets.
The vote was split 4-4, with Mayor Mark Drnek breaking the tie in favor of the resolution.
Voting in support were Elayne Mosher Campoli, D-First Ward, Cecelia Walsh-Russo, D-Second Ward, Shannon McHugh, D-Third Ward, and Michael Forster Rothbart, D-Seventh Ward. Opposing the resolution were Kaytee Lipari Shue, D-Fourth Ward, Len Carson, R-Fifth Ward, Scott Harrington, R-Sixth Ward, and Don Mathisen, D-Eighth Ward.
Mathisen, whose district includes Muller Plaza, said local business owners have questioned the value of the city’s investment in downtown programming.
“At a time when we are spending a million and a half more than we’re taking in, I don’t think this is a good thing for us to do,” Mathisen said.
Foothills Performing Arts and Civic Center Executive Director Geoffrey Doyle, speaking on his own behalf, supported the funding. He said the planned Al Gallodoro Memorial Stage in Muller Plaza should be actively used.
“It would not be ideal to have it sitting empty after the initial investment is made,” Doyle said, adding that Drnek’s proposed performance schedule was designed to avoid conflicts with other local events, including those at Foothills.
“There’s a shared sentiment that Oneonta needs to be marketed better, or rather that it needs to be marketed at all,” Doyle said. “This would benefit downtown businesses, including those that may feel overlooked because they’re not right on Main Street.”
Kaler Carpenter, youth program manager at Friends of Recovery Dedicated to Others, highlighted the success of the Muller Plaza ambassador program. FOR-DO and Club Odyssey staffed the plaza for 14 weeks during the summers of 2023 and 2024, setting up tables, chairs and umbrellas, offering family-friendly games and keeping the area clean.
FOR-DO counted 6,183 visitors to the plaza in 2023 and 8,768 in 2024. The organization earned $16,500 a year for its work.
Carpenter said he had been preparing for another summer of programming until the council cut the funding while finalizing the 2025 budget.
When it became clear the council wasn’t going to fund the plaza activities this summer, “I hit the panic button,” Carpenter said.
He said that FOR-DO’s involvement began in 2023 using funds originally allocated for YMCA children’s programming. Last summer, 1,387 kids and 655 teens among 1,241 families participated in plaza activities.
Carpenter also oversees the Oneonta Teen Center and receives $13,500 annually to provide youth services. When the Muller Plaza ambassador program was cut, he worried that youth funding might be next on the chopping block.
“If the council was trying so hard to cut funding for children, I thought the youth services money wouldn’t be safe,” he said.
FOR-DO had to restructure its services, stepping back from the Teen Center and turning to LEAF to take over the programming.
“It was kind of bleak there for a while,” Carpenter said.