Task Force Aims To Use Arts To Lift City Profile

First Effort May Bulk Up Tag Sale, Soccer Weekend

By JIM KEVLIN

The city’s 11-member Arts Task Force – its first official meeting was planned at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 23, in City Hall – is aiming to organize the first “Oneonta, Life Enjoyed” Weekend around the Grand & Glorious Tag Sale and Mayor’s Cup soccer tournament this fall.
“They run together,” said Kellie Place, Task Force chair, in describing her group’s agenda.  “Maybe we can add to them.”
Mayor Dick Miller – the Task Force grew out of two Arts Summits he organized, one in January and the other Thursday, Feb. 17 – endorsed the plan, saying several hundred players and their parents will be in the city that weekend, plus both colleges will be in session.
“That is an idea at this point,” said Miller. “I wouldn’t mind doing something before that. But that seemed to be an obvious opportunity.”
Place, a realtor with Prudential Fox who is also co-director of the New York Summer Music Festival, hosted annually at SUNY Oneonta, volunteered to join the Task Force after the first Arts Summit.
When it met a few days later to organize, its members ranged from Kathy Tobiassen, Orpheus Theater president, to Doug Halberg, an Edmeston Central arts teacher who also operates his own stained-glass studio.  Place emerged as chair.
The first task to also emerge from that meeting was creation of a “Master Arts Calendar” to assist collaboration and prevent duplication. 
(Responding to that call at the first summit, Hometown Oneonta agreed separately to take on that responsibility; see Pages C1-4, a special pullout section in this edition that will appear in the last edition of each month.)

Also at the first Arts Summit, Mayor Miller had diagrammed the arts community as arrows heading off in different directions.  After the second, David Hayes, MSO’s downtown coordinator, prepared a chart showing three sectors heading in the same direction:
• One, entities charged with economic development, such as the Otsego County Chamber and the Otsego County Economic Development Office.
• Two, entities with a private-sector mission to encourage prosperity, such as Hometown Oneonta and Sweet Home Productions.
• Three, entities specifically charged with the growth of Oneonta’s artistic community, such as the Foothills Performing Arts Center and Orpheus.
In addition to the tag sale/Mayor’s Cup weekend, Hayes said the Otsego artist Charles Bremer suggested an arts festival that would be ongoing over the course of the summer.