To the Editor:

Taxes, taxes, taxes.

What a wonderful time of year! Robins, bluebirds, plus federal and state taxes due by April 16.  Not good enough? Right behind those taxes will be notices about our village taxes due in June.  

We did have a chance of eliminating that one, but a monumental propaganda campaign against dissolution eliminated that. I do, however, give all kinds of credit to Mayor Yurgartis for trying to reduce expenses now and in the future with regards to such items as the fire and police departments. Something has to “give,” and he is doing his best.  

The “Old Guard” led by Mrs. Garner will also be doing (as usual) its utmost to stop any kind of change, and I hope that effort will be in vain.

The mayor and the village in general have their work cut out for them. We already have 70 percent of our village property that is tax exempt, and that property keeps on expanding, particularly with the annexation of private property being taken up by the Canton-Potsdam Hospital and which promptly adds to that “tax exempt” status.

I dearly love that wonderful hospital: its personnel; and I, like thousands of others, depend upon it.  I am, however, a bit uneasy about “empire building” and the swallowing up of taxable property up and down Potsdam’s streets.  

Many moons ago, some folks gave thought to a regional hospital between here and Canton, with the tax base loss stretched out between the two towns/villages, and not right on the back of the Village of Potsdam all of the time. Unfortunately, not much ever happened, so here we are.

And yes, in closing, there will be the real “biggie” due in September --the dreaded school tax.  There is no room to deal with that one in this letter, but I promise that I will not forget it.  After some 35 years in education -- most of which was enjoyably spent as a public school classroom history teacher -- I have some observations to make that may surprise, delight, and possibly  annoy  a number of people.  

Hang on - I am working and agonizing on it!

Dick Hutchinson, Potsdam