BY CRAIG FREILICH
North Country This Week

POTSDAM – The Potsdam Town Council will hold a special meeting Thursday afternoon to take a second vote on the Old Snell Hall PILOT plan and to have an executive session for a preliminary discussion on proposals for a solar project proposals at its former landfill on Reynolds Road.

PILOT for Old Snell rehab

At meetings by the town board and the school board Jan. 14, both bodies voted to approve a plan for payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) on the Vecino Group’s “The Quarry” development plan for Old Snell Hall in downtown Potsdam.

The resolutions they voted on erroneously included language from another document, according to St. Lawrence County Industrial Development Agency CEO Patrick Kelly. Both boards will have to hold re-votes an the corrected document.

The town will take a re-vote Thursday. The Potsdam Central School Board of Education has a lawyer looking into it and will likely schedule a re-vote after they hear back from counsel.

The Potsdam village board was lucky enough to catch the error in a PILOT resolution on the agenda for their Jan. 20 meeting, and corrected it before their affirmative vote.

All three taxing entities – the town, village and school board – must approve the proposed PILOT if it is to go into effect.

The town, village, school district and the county will all share in annual payments from the developers over 32 years. The first payment will be $119,774, and subsequent payments will range from about $50,000 early in the term to about $89,000 in the final year, for a total of $2.1 million.

The Vecino Group’s plan to refurbish Old Snell Hall into apartments, offices and a performance space would not be viable without the PILOT arrangement, Vecino has said.

Solar electric proposals

Meanwhile the town has received two responses to its request for proposals (RFP) for solar array development at the old Reynolds Road landfill, which was closed, sealed up and all but abandoned decades ago.

A photoelectric generation project at the site could mean new revenue for the town, which revised its building code section on solar installations to help attract just such a development.

Town Supervisor Ann Carvill said the board will go into executive session on Thursday to discuss the proposals with attorney Kevin Murphy of the Wladis Law Firm, and could be ready for a public discussion of the proposals “probably by the next regular meeting of the board” Feb. 11 at 6:30 p.m. in Town Hall.