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BY ADAM ATKINSONNorth Country This Week

POTSDAM – No Mow May in Potsdam may have gotten a little out of hand in Potsdam, says the village code enforcement officer. 

“The other condition that we're really facing a lot of right now. Last year at this time, we were deeply enthralled in No Mow May, where the village got behind not mowing the lawn, ” said Village Code Enforcement Officer Greg Thompson at the May 19th village board meeting. “We have not done that this year.”

“My department has been very forgiving to this point, but after driving around the village today, there are a lot of lawns that have to be mowed,” Thompson said. 

The code enforcement officer said there would be a price to pay for those who don’t comply with the village code. 

“We will cite you. If you do ignore it, we will have it mowed with a 25% surcharge added to the price. So we're asking people, ‘Mow your lawns.’ That includes trimming and mowing all the way to the curb,” Thompson said. 

He said mowed lawns in a neighborhood make a “huge” difference in how a street looks. 

“You know, when we leave our lawns long like that, number 1, when you do decide to mow, it's incredibly hard on your equipment. And, number 2, it can shock your lawn and actually kill the grass. So there are a lot of negatives to letting that lawn go unattended,” sad the code enforcement officer. 

Village Mayor Alexandra Jacobs Wilke said that Rose Rivezzi  from the Smart Communities Task Force had presented on the topic of No Mow May a couple board meetings ago. Wilke said the advice was to mow, but at a longer grass setting than golf course level. 

“And she had other information from the pollinators group about other ways to support pollinators to plantings, and a page was just added to our website that brought together those resources so that it can be shared online, we can put a link on our social media page and online later for people who are interested in helping the bees,” Wilke said. 

“There was a great article from Cornell Cooperative Extension on this. If anybody saw it in the paper. But by shocking it, you're actually like causing a lot more damage to anything living in there as well,” added Village Trustee Lynzie Schulte. “Because now they have nowhere to go.”

Thompson said another issue with tall grass lawns being mowed is that sometimes property owners will then rake the extra grass up and put it out by the road which creates several additional problems. 

“It creates an issue if we get a heavy rainstorm and that washes out into the road. It's incredibly dangerous for motorcycles. It becomes almost like an icy surface when it's wet for a motorcycle to traverse open,” Thompson said. “And number 2, affecting me more than the others, is the fact that (grass cuttings) will rundown and clog up a storm drain if we get a large quantity of the grass,” he said. 

“So there's a lot of benefits. We just ask people to please make an effort to keep your lawns mowed if they would,” said Thompson. 

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