To the Editor:

If Gov. Cuomo is really serious about increasing efficiency and reducing layers of local government, he should turn his focus from villages to towns. Leave the village alone – it is there where the density of population is and where services are provided as economically as possible. It is town government that is superfluous. If the governor wants a radical solution, he should urge the state legislature to change the laws on local government structure to eliminate towns. (This might require a change in the state constitution, but we are way overdue for a constitutional revision anyway.) There is nothing town governments do that could not be done by counties, cities and villages; towns as they are now could be run by the highway superintendent and the clerk.

Of course, this change will not happen, as town units are enshrined in state law and in historic practice. Many counties, for example, are still governed in historic practice. Many counties for example are still governed by town supervisors. Furthermore, in rural areas, residents tend to identify with their town as their place. But it would be the efficient route to take – financially sound if not politically prudent.

It makes very little sense to destroy the core governmental unit, the center of population and services and turn over the responsibility to the larger unit that has little expertise and less interest in taking on the additional burdens. To say nothing of the ill feelings generated in the town outside. As people who had no vote in the matter see their taxes rise, and the frustrating disappointment of the former villagers as they see little or no savings, but possibly severe loss of services as well as identity.

And governor, instead of offering financial incentives for village dissolution, how about providing compensation for the big hit in tax loss we take every year—70 percent—due to the exempt institutions and properties. How about some appropriate changes to the tax law?

The towns aren’t going to be dissolved, at least not anytime soon, and though it might make sense for some very small villages in the state to dissolve, it does not make sense for Potsdam. I think it is telling that several members of the dissolution study committee who began with leanings toward dissolution but with open minds, were convinced after their investigation that it would be a disaster to dissolve the village. I strongly urge village of Potsdam residents to vote no on dissolution. Save our village.

Helen Brouwer

Potsdam