By MAUREEN PICHÉ

POTSDAM – If village dissolution is approved by voters Nov. 8, Potsdam’s three largest employers may face a negative impact in two areas currently under village control: police protection and village codes and ordinances.

Canton-Potsdam Hospital, Clarkson University and SUNY Potsdam employ not only a substantial number of village residents, but town residents as well.

While their non-profit status means they don’t pay property taxes, the “big three” also benefit the most from village services.

Village services most in danger of changing are the police department and ordinances governing apartment inspection, grass and building exterior maintenance, and codes covering such things as whether a car can be parked on a front yard.

The colleges and CPH frequently call on village police for fights, arrests, investigation and assistance, and officers patrol for and ticket many college students weekly for traffic- and alcohol-related infractions throughout the village.

During the first 17 days of September, for example, police responded 21 times to calls from or reported incidents at Clarkson University and SUNY Potsdam. Officers responded to incidents at CPH five times. And police dispatched the Potsdam Volunteer Rescue Squad nine times to the colleges and once to Damon Field Airport to transport a CPH patient.

Some responsible for recruiting students, faculty, staff and physicians fear it will be more difficult to attract people to Potsdam if the community loses the current level of law enforcement, or looks shabbier because lawns are overgrown with grass and weeds and cars are parked on lawns. Also, the community may be less attractive to students living off-campus if many apartments were no longer inspected for safety and building code compliance, they say.

But the very presence of the universities and hospital, and the influx of population they provide, are the primary reasons why the rest of the jobs and population exist throughout the Town of Potsdam.

Institutions Take No Stand

Spokespersons for the three institutions are not taking an official stance on dissolution, saying they will leave it up to village residents to decide.

But some officials say dissolution, if not handled correctly, could adversely affect the viability of the colleges and hospital.

According to the final report and recommendations put together this year by the Dissolution Study Committee, if the village is dissolved, the town would have four options for police coverage.

A town-wide police force could be created; the town could contract with the St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department or other agency for town-wide coverage which would not include enforcement of current village regulations; or arrange for no town police coverage, relying instead on current levels of response from state police and sheriff’s deputies.

A fourth option would involve providing the same level of police services to the former village by creating a special police district within the boundaries of the former village, a move which would remain the sole expense of those living in the district. However, the Dissolution Report warns the “option is technically feasible but politically unrealistic.” The move would require “both the Village and Town mutually request their legislators to sponsor the legislation” as state legislature approval would be required.

Creating a police district within the former village limits, the committee says, would place the tax burden solely on the former village residents, and could actually be more than they’re currently paying.

The dissolution committee recommends an enhanced town-wide force, with the addition of more officers than are now employed by the village. “Response time, range of services and enforcement of newly adopted former Village codes are directly linked to appropriate staffing,” the Dissolution Report says.

Busy With Students, Patients

The Potsdam Police Department’s annual budget, including fringe benefits, retirement and health insurance, comes to over $2 million for 2012, according to David Fenton, Potsdam Village Administrator. That is 38 percent of the village’s overall budget of $5.8 million. Right now, only village residents pay for this.

According to the village police blotter, patrols are frequent visitors to the hospital to aid with disorderly patients, and they also handle dispatch for the Potsdam Volunteer Rescue Squad through a pilot program with the county 911.

Most Friday and Saturday nights during the college school year, the police are kept busy downtown ticketing students for alcohol-related infractions such as open container, public urination and underage drinking or attempts to purchase alcohol. They also respond to noise complaints and acts of vandalism throughout the village. When fights break out at local taverns or when student drivers run red lights, fail to stop at crosswalks or speed, village police are there to deal with them.

On Sept. 9 and 10, the Potsdam Village Police blotter reported nine incidents resulting in tickets for college students, confirmed through the college student directories.

Clarkson has campus security, but frequently calls in village police for arrests and other situations. SUNY Potsdam has its own campus police, but the force is confined to campus and its adjacent streets. The village police are called on occasion for backup or to dispatch ambulances to the campus.

For instance, the village police blotter on Sept. 9 reports Clarkson security contacted the village police for assistance with underage males who were drinking at the old Walker Arena, and later that morning, to assist the security staff who was interviewing a female student reporting a physical domestic dispute with her boyfriend. That same day, patrols responded to SUNY Potsdam’s Lehman Park, directly across Pierrepont Avenue from the campus, after receiving a report of public lewdness.

No Guarantees

The Potsdam Town Board has yet to weigh in on what they may do with the police department should the village dissolve, and that has many people nervous.

“There’s no guarantee as to what the police situation would be. The town board has not given an indication and that worries me,” said Chip Morris, Dean of Students at SUNY Potsdam. “We’d like a situation where police are there and able to respond as quickly as possible.”

He said the colleges rely on the image of a safe community where parents don’t have to worry about bringing their children to campus because of a high crime rate or lack of supervision. This image could be weakened if the response time is lessened and the force is spread across a huge area, he said.

Also worrisome to some community leaders is the potential for a sharp decline in the village’s appearance, if the village’s codes and ordinances aren’t maintained by the town by creating a district using the village’s old outline.

Morris said loosened restrictions on tidy neighborhoods could also make parents of students or prospective employees think twice about choosing Potsdam.

According to the dissolution study, 70 percent of properties in the village are rentals. The village ordinances require inspection of all rentals with one or more apartments, while the town’s only kicks in for three or more units.

Without the ordinance, some absentee landlords might cut back on checking the safety of their buildings or seeing to the maintenance of the yard and the parking behaviors of the tenants, Morris said.

Safety, Appearances to Suffer?

“We have many responsible landlords and some who are not, and if we give them a way to be less responsible, that’s not going to be good for us,” Morris said. “With the grass grown, the paint peeling, cars on front lawns, all of a sudden, people come to campus and say, ‘You know, Geneseo looked better.’”

Right now, the village has a code in place that enforces yard maintenance, unlike the town, where aesthetically, fields of wild growth are often seen as attractive. Close home proximity in the village could make that an unsightly nuisance.

A car parked in front of a home set way back from a country road is also much different than one or more on the lawns of a congested village street.

“Our ability to recruit and maintain students and staff might be adversely affected by changes in those ordinances,” Morris said.

The dissolution committee foresees no significant difficulties in unifying the code and zoning ordinances for the former village and town, according to the report. “The ‘new’ town code, however, must account for former village zones based largely on population density, proximity of homes and large percentage of rental units,” it states.

County Planning Director Keith Zimmerman agrees, noting it would not be difficult for the town board to create zoning classifications once the public came forward and petitioned them.

But even with the codes in place, the question remains of whether there will be sufficient staff to enforce them. And that means staff the police department and code enforcement office at a high enough level that staff has time to deal with those issues.

The committee recommends merging the town and village code departments, but keeping the staff at the same level. However, staff hours for the village employees would be reduced to 30 hours a week, in keeping with the town’s hours.

“I think a smaller number of hours would make it hard to keep up,” Morris said.

Morris, and the study committee, would like to see a memorandum of understanding ironed out ensuring a district would be created prior to the November vote, but Morris said he isn’t expecting one.