NORWICH – Only a small number of business, arts and cultural leaders in Chenango County have been consulted about a new iniative designed to promote the Chenango, Delaware and Otsego corridor.
And only one organization, The Earlville Opera House, has actually attended one of two meetings held by an ad hoc organization which calls itself, The Tri-County Project.
The gatherings were initiated under the guidance of the Chenango, Delaware, Otsego Workforce Investment Board and one of the district’s state senators, James Seward. The first meeting in November targeted key players in the region’s arts, humanities, museums and heritage organizations. A meeting last week was directed toward businesses.
The Tri-County Project’s mission is to identify ways to promote the three counties’ tourism attractions and cultural offerings, and by doing so, attract new businesses and bring much-needed jobs to the area. Its primary focus is to rethink the “Central Leatherstocking” brand that was given to most of the area by the “I Love New York” campaign in 1977.
CDO Workforce Development Board Director Kevin Price said invitations were extended to the Earlville Opera House and Northeast Classic Car Museum in Norwich, and representatives from Golden Artists Colors in New Berlin, Black Bear Winery in Greene and NBT Bank of Norwich were consulted.
Kay Zaia, director of the car museum, said she had planned to attend the meeting held Jan. 31 but was ill.
“We’ve kept to a small number of larger players in the area,” Price said, adding that the original list of invitees in November originated at The Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown. The meeting last week took place at The Foothills Performing Arts Center in Oneonta.
Price said economic development leaders will be contacted to attend a larger summit meeting planned for the spring.
Economic Development Director Maureen Carpenter said she or a member of the Chenango County Chamber of Commerce would have attended the gathering had they been contacted. “If we had known, we would have been able to schedule it,” she said.
Chenango County was represented at 10 of 11 Central Leatherstocking Region meetings held in 2007. (The region is officially comprised of Broome, Chenango, Madison, Montgomery, Oneida, Otsego and Schoharie counties.)
Chenango County Council of the Arts Director Victoria Kappel said while she knew about Sen. Seward’s initiative, she was not told that the two meetings had taken place.
Patti Lockwood-Blais, executive director of the Earlville Opera House, said Sen. Seward’s office and Price had asked her to participate. She said the branding idea and ways to package travel opportunities in Chenango County had been repeatedly discussed at periodic tourism meetings she has attended in the past at the Chamber in Norwich.
Lockwood-Blais said the success of the “whole venture” would be compromised “if we don’t all work together.” She said because Earlville is partly in Madison County, she collaborates as much with tourism leaders there as she does with those in Otsego and Chenango counties.
“What is the Central Leatherstocking area anyway?” she asked. “Most people don’t know where it is. Identifying the area simply as ‘Central New York’ would be cleaner.”
A conceptual plan distributed at last week’s meeting describes the three county region as “famed for its unsurpassed beauty and varied terrain” and specifically points to Chenango County’s “unspoiled rural landscape of rolling farmlands and rural villages.”
A written description of the museums, performing arts organizations and other cultural assets that can help grow and sustain the region’s economy highlighted the following:
Otsego County - The Fenimore Art Museum, the Farmer’s Museum, the Glimmerglass Opera, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Soccer Hall of Fame, the Foothills Performing Arts Center, and the Upper Catskill Symphony Orchestra.
Delaware County - The Franklin Stage, the Hanford Mills Museum, the Roxbury Arts Group and the West Kortright Center.
Chenango County - The Earlville Opera House.
In addition to Golden Artists Colors, William Andrews Publishing of Norwich is identified in the committee’s mission statement as one of the region’s business assets that could benefit from creating a better cultural identity in the corridor.
According to Price, the initiative’s goals are to create and market a “creative cluster” identity for the region comprised of nonprofit institutions, individual artists and commercial businesses. He said the committee is currently studying a similar initiative that was successful for the Berkshire Mountains region of Massachusetts.