To the Editor:

Potsdam’s Fall Island is one of my favorite places. On one side sits the historic and beautiful Trinity Chapel. On the other sits a string of local businesses, including the phenomenal Jernabi Coffeehouse. 

A real treat lies behind Jernabi: a public park with wonderful benches next to multiple waterfalls. I have watched people fish, read books, drink Jernabi coffee, eat Lee’s Hawaiian Grill, and enjoy themselves countless other ways in this park. The park and all nearby businesses are serviced by a small parking lot. That lot held the distinction of offering stress-free all-night parking, a symbiotic service that benefited all of downtown Potsdam. Until today. 

Today the boney finger of bureaucratic miserdom defiled this little Eden of mutualism. Today half of Fall Island’s parking has become permit based (whatever that means) the rest no longer available all night. I wouldn’t have even noticed the change, and might have received a parking ticket, if a kindhearted fellow citizen had not pointed out the new parking signs to me in warning. 

The Village’s new hobby seems to be monomaniacally altering parking arrangements, with an eye towards restricting available hours and increasing monetization. Their reasoning seems to be that in light of unprecedented inflation, rising cost of living, and of course the fact we live in one of the poorest counties in all of New York State, the logical course of action is to shake down working class North Country People for nickels and dimes whenever they attempt to park their cars and feed themselves or make appointments. 

The sages comprising that aforementioned body of local governance do not seem to have considered the negative effect their monkeying has on our town’s morale and our local restaurant owners’ livelihoods. It doesn’t feel good to watch your own town search for ways to soak you for money, like the landlord in Les Misérables. It is absolutely foolish to make it harder for customers to drop their cars off for a late-night of safe fun at Maxfield’s. 

We don’t live in Rochester or NYC. There are only half a dozen red lights downtown. Why should parking here be monetized/directed? Casual parking was fine for the last forty years; why not leave it that way?  

Mr. Krabs and Scrooge McDuck themselves would show more restraint, because even they understand that to make money in the long run you first have to let people park.

Silas Smith
Norwood