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Village board still trying to prevent change

Posted 1/16/12

To the Editor: Just a few weeks ago, I thought maybe there would finally be peace between the village and town. Not so. The voting machines had hardly cooled off before Trustee Garner fired a shot at …

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Village board still trying to prevent change

Posted

To the Editor:

Just a few weeks ago, I thought maybe there would finally be peace between the village and town. Not so. The voting machines had hardly cooled off before Trustee Garner fired a shot at the town saying that she did not really see what the town did for the village. In the first place, she has been in politics too long not to know that this was pure exaggeration.

It was just absolute sarcasm that opened up the feud once more. I will not reply to it -Marie Regan and the Town Board did that and did it well. My reply to Mrs. Garner would be that the Village of Potsdam has much more to answer for than the Town ever has.

We could have had a Walmart within village borders and on our tax rolls. Who blew the chance? Guess. Who did give it to us? The Town of Potsdam. Even after that, Walmart offered to build a sewer (and maybe water) line from the village out to the store at their expense and it could have netted us thousands in revenue. Who turned it down? Yep- you already know. Instead, Walmart eventually shipped its waste out to Canton, and Canton has laughed all the way to the bank ever since.

And yet, the beat goes on --we have a developer who wants to build on our outskirts, yet the Village of Potsdam refuses to cooperate with water and sewer without “annexation.” Again, more potential money down the drain. What is this? A local rerun of such historic slogans as “Remember the Alamo, 54-40 or Fight” or what? Or are we some ancient village building a wall around ourselves so that the barbarians will never get in?

Finally who got the “Big Blunder Award” because of the hydro dam, and the continuing saga of mismanagement, wasted tax money, paying for things twice, no performance bond, etc? It was and is the Village of Potsdam, not the Town of Potsdam. In any other local government I have ever been in or known, all of those responsible should have resigned in shame. Here they not only do not resign, they run for reelection and win!

Give me a choice and I will take the efficient government of the Town of Potsdam that has no scandal or any Garner faction in it. We had a shot at that with dissolution and blew it. I hope we will not live to regret it, but if the feud continues, I wonder. And remember, we do have another shot at dissolution in 2013. The village is on trial, or maybe we should call it probation. I hope they are successful. But recent events are not encouraging.

Dick Hutchinson

Potsdam