Cooperstown News Bureau

COOPERSTOWN - Otsego County is due to receive an installment of $632,000 in tobacco settlement money this week, according to state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

"New York is receiving a total of $518,250,283, which is being allocated among New York state, New York City and each individual county," Spitzer wrote in a letter read aloud at Wednesday night's meeting of the Otsego County Board of Representatives. With this payment, entities within the state have received about $1.8 billion, he wrote.

The April 2001 payment is the largest the state has received from the federal government's settlement with tobacco companies, Spitzer wrote.

Hugh Henderson, chairman of the county's Budget Ways and Means Committee, said the board is examining the possibility of selling rights to its tobacco settlement money as a way of securing one large payment.

In other business, the board:

• Listened to Teresa Winchester, executive director of the Otsego County Conservation Association, who asked for "a county and/or state law prohibiting the open burning of solid waste, except for certain agricultural materials and yard waste."

Winchester also called for an educational campaign to teach people the hazards of open burning.

• Heard from Catherine Andrews, daughter of Wayne Andrews of Oneonta, who depends on Otsego County public health nurses to care for him in his home. Catherine Andrews said she is circulating a petition asking that public health nurses and related staff members receive better pay.

Some public health nurses attended Wednesday's meeting and Rosie Searles, a home health aide, said aides are also underpaid for the responsibilities they shoulder.

• Resolved to buy two plows for $31,113 from Roberts Equipment in Cazenovia. The plows will be installed on trucks to plow county roads in Burlington next year, according to Leonard Perry, Otsego County's superintendent of highways. Recently, Burlington decided it would no longer plow county roads.

• Resolved to purchase 10 personal computers for $11,100.

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Tom Grace can be reached at grace@ascent.net or (607) 547-2431.