Gloversville, Johnstown work out dispute threatening economic development | Business

GLOVERSVILLE - The Fage Yogurt Company has grown to 240 employees in Johnstown since starting up in 2006.

The company wanted to add a 50,000-square-foot addition that would increase production and employ an expected 150 additional workers, planning to break ground in the Spring.

But to do that they also needed to make some improvements at the Sewage Treatment Plant that is jointly owned by the cities of Johnstown and Gloversville.

Johnstown was all for it since the yogurt expansion would add to their tax base and increase jobs. 

Gloversville wasn't, unless Johnstown officials got more reasonable on expansion around a new Walmart that was being held up.

In August Gloversville Mayor Dayton King told NewsChannel 13 "the city of Johnstown, I think, would like to put a wall up and be their own little entity in Fulton County."

Well, after Gov. Cuomo reached out with some telephone diplomacy earlier this week, that wall has come down.

Gloversville Mayor King tells us he met with his Johnstown counterpart Thursday.

The two officials signed a binding contract where Gloversville now consents to the sewage improvements Fage needs and Johnstown agrees to allow water and sewer hookups around the new Walmart under construction in Gloversville.