By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM -- In spite of a threat this past winter to resign, Village Administrator Everett Basford does not have a firm plan to leave the office and in fact will stay on to see some projects through.

Basford had said he would leave the post early this year over what he said were mistakes in procedure by members of the Board of Trustees that could put village government in a bad light.

He said at the time that he thought he might leave in April, and then later said it might be July before he would leave the appointed position.

Now he says “it’s a timing thing,” that he’s in no hurry, and that there are “several projects I’m trying to get moving along” before he considers an end date.

Among those is moving three war memorial monuments from the front lawn of Old Snell Hall to Ives Park. Just this week Assemblywoman Addie Russell, D-Theresa, announced that the project will be getting $15,000 in state money to establish a veterans’ memorial plaza in the riverside park.

“That project was about two years old and had gotten stalled,” Basford said. Working with Potsdam VFW Post Commander Bob Crary, “we received a little money through Russell’s office for the village vets project.

“And there’s the hydro generation project, which I really want to see get moving,” Basford said.

The two hydropower generation stations at the downtown Raquette River dams have been plagued with troubles since the village decided to go ahead and build the second station and the turbine parts supplier failed to deliver what he promised. After many delays and extra expenditures, the new station is generating electricity, but in the meantime the older station, at the east dam, which was undergoing what was thought to be routine gearbox and bearing maintenance, has itself turned into a saga of mechanical failure and more expense. That is still not resolved, and Basford would like to see that get on track.

“I’ve agreed to hang in there for a little while to see if we can get these things moving along. So there’s not really a date set” for him to leave, and there is no active search for his replacement.

Basford said early this year he was considering resigning when a member of the Board of Trustees, in violation of established practice, gave village staff instructions in the absence of official policy debated and adopted by the board in an open meeting.