BY ADAM ATKINSONNorth Country This Week

POTSDAM -- A resolution supporting SUNY Potsdam and calling on the state to pay off the college's $9 million deficit which was voted down at the April 1 village board meeting has now been passed.

The board reconvened with all of the board members present April 15.

The resolution was then passed 3 votes yes with two abstentions.

In the resolution, the village calls on the state legislature to use $139 million to pay campus budget deficits at SUNY Potsdam and other SUNY colleges facing crippling deficits.

It also backs passage of an assembly bill which would limit the number of SUNY trustees the governor can appoint and allow the leaders of the Senate and Assembly to each appoint 4 trustees to the SUNY board.

At the earlier village board meeting, the resolution died on the floor with two in favor and one against with Mayor Alexandra Jacobs Wilke, who works for SUNY Potsdam as director of public relations, abstaining. One trustee, Lynzie Schulte, was absent from that meeting. At the April 1 meeting Village Trustee Monique Tirion voted against the measure, citing concerns over the tone of the resolution and said it wasn't appropriate for her to support the language of the resolution.

The measure needed a 3-vote majority to pass.

At the April 15 meeting, Wilke again abstained, but was joined by Tirion who also abstained. With the full board present, Trustees Steve Warr, Schulte, and Sharon Williams voted in support.