By CRAIG FREILICH

North Country Now

POTSDAM – The Town Council Tuesday night did not act on a request for a resolution to support the “I-98” plan for a “rooftop highway” in the county.

Town Clerk Cindy Goliber said the generic-sounding resolution was circulated to many municipalities in the last year or two seeking support for one of many plans for a highway or bypass as a way to improve traffic flow and stimulate a higher level of business activity in the region.

Supervisor Ann Carvill said there is interest in improvement to transportation, but the consensus of the Town Council was that there was not enough information in the proposed resolution about the specifics of the plan to take a vote on it.

The village Board of Trustees earlier this month took a similar position on the proposal, which was described then as favoring an Interstate-grade multi-lane limited-access highway across the North Country, supported by Mark Bellardini and Jason Clark, who would like to have the benefit of the union jobs it would generate while it was built.

The trustees were asked to consider a plan with revised wording after they told the promoters earlier that some of the resolution’s provisions would not be acceptable to trustees.

Several proposals exist, including a few plans from the state Department of Transportation with bypasses of Potsdam and Canton downtowns and otherwise upgrading U.S. Route 11, and another plan for ambitious “I-98.”

The Town Council at their Tuesday night meeting also heard from Potsdam farmer Adam Cook, who told councilors that one of the DOT’s bypass plans, without an overpass, would cut off easy access from one part of his farm to another, and would force him to drive his very wide machinery on village streets.