By CRAIG FREILICH
North Country Now

POTSDAM -- The Village of Potsdam has made an offer to a Morristown man to fill the fire department’s open paid driver position, but the prospective driver has turned the offer down.

In public session after an executive session to discuss the offer, the village Board of Trustees voted to approach Kyle Hollister, who was on the list of potential applicants on the list provided by the St. Lawrence County Human Resources and Civil Service Administration.

However, he told the village he will not take the job.

"I declined (on good terms) due to already accepting another offer," Hollister said.

“Now we go to the next phase as directed by Civil Service,” said Trustee Abby Lee, though what that entails she said she did not yet know.

Lee, Trustee Cindy Goliber and Trustee Maggie McKenna voted to extend the offer to Hollister at the board’s public meting Oct. 15. Mayor Tischler abstained due to a family friendship with one of the candidates. Trustee Steve Warr was not present at the meeting.

The next round of interviews for the position was expected to begin Monday, Oct. 22.

The retirement of one paid driver and not immediately filling the position was an effort to save money borne out of recommendations in a report from the New York State Financial Restructuring Board for Local Governments. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli recommended the village take up his offer of help from the restructuring board after his office issued a report in February 2016 that Potsdam was at the top of a list of fiscally distressed villages.

The restructuring board issued its recommendations in February 2018, and it included many recommendations, including dropping the entire paid fire driver staff from the budget, which they said would save the village $250,000 a year.

This past spring, village administration said they would not immediately fill the in an attempt to cut expenses, but that resulted in more expense due to having to pay overtime to the remaining drivers.

“We’re rural, with a lot of tax exempt property,” so it can be hard to raise enough money from taxpayers and still provide vital services, said Trustee Cindy Goliber.

“We have to save money and keep taxes in line,” she said.

“I know we have to save money. But that report was based on what was happening two or three years ago,” and the village is in a better financial position now, Goliber said.

She said having a paid trained person at the firehouse at all times is a responsibility the village needs to meet.

“I support it because I am very concerned about safety. It can save a life. I truly believe that. There are dorms at the colleges, and multi-family houses here. I believe response time is crucial. We need to ensure the safety of the village with quick response. I’ve always supported a 24/7 manned station.”

Trustee Lee agrees.

“I believe they have a valuable role. Clearly the intention was to have a trial period, to try another system, and it didn’t work,” she said.

The comptroller’s review said Potsdam should drop the drivers. “We’re not ready to do that,” for two reasons, Lee said.

“The paid fire drivers are a service village taxpayers have said they want,” and under the attrition plan devised this past spring, “we were going into the overtime budget,” which was not what was intended, she said.

“We’re very lucky to have a dedicated volunteer fire department, and the village has a responsibility to have the paid drivers” to take incoming emergency calls and get the trucks rolling.

Potsdam Fire Chief Danielle Rose is firm in her position that the village needs the coverage the paid drivers provide.

“There is absolutely no way the fire department can contribute to cutting expenses in this way. The safety of the public comes first. This not the place to be cutting positions,” she said.

Rose said the existence of autodialers in the colleges, some businesses and homes, which call the department if an alarm is activated, “are why we have the paid drivers. The taxpayers have every right to have dialers that dial in here” to the police and fire complex downtown. “If they ring in someplace else it will just add to the response time. That’s not a good idea.”