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Ogdensburg City Council candidate profile: David Price

Posted 10/20/19

BY JIMMY LAWTON North Country This Week OGDENSBURG – Republican City Councilor David Price says Ogdensburg must convince to the state and federal governments to provide relief on property within …

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Ogdensburg City Council candidate profile: David Price

Posted

BY JIMMY LAWTON

North Country This Week

OGDENSBURG – Republican City Councilor David Price says Ogdensburg must convince to the state and federal governments to provide relief on property within the city.

Price says in order to improve the city and reduce taxes the city needs to bring in more revenues, get properties back on the tax rolls and attract more businesses.

He says the council has been working hard to find ways to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and get properties on the tax rolls and ready for development, but it will take time.

“We got a list of suggestions from the Financial Restructuring Board and the reality is we were already doing most of what they recommended,” he said.

Price said the city had begun cutting through attrition, has formed a land bank, and worked to reduce health care costs. He says the city is looking into a fleet management program, which should reduce the costs of vehicle maintenance.

“I think we have 103 employees and we cut seven recently through attrition. We are offering early retirement incentives. We are looking at every avenue of cost savings,” he said.

Price says he isn’t running for council because he has an ax to grind. He says he simply wants to share his talents with the city to improve the community.

“My talents happen to be in research and informed decision-making. I’m an open book, I’m here to help,” he said. “I ran for office because I’ve seen the city declining and I want to change that,” he said.

Price says the city still has many problems to solve, namely finding new revenue. “We’ve done a good job in working with what we have. This council has made hard decisions and we are making progress. I don’t think we should change the horse midstream. We are pushing in the right direction,” he said.

Price says the he thinks the city was wrong to delay the wastewater treatment plant construction in order to secure bids and believes that delay led to a higher project cost, but added that he voted against it at the time.

Price also says that, unfortunately, the ballot is not following city charter.

“Our attorneys said we couldn’t vote to fix it, because the four of us would directly benefit. If we opened up that seat to all candidates, it would give me another spot, I’d benefit from it,” he said.

Price, an administrator at Ogdensburg Free Academy, says if he is elected he will continue to bring informed, well researched ideas to the council.