By THOMAS LUCKIE III

OGDENSBURG -- The Ogdensburg City School District Board of Education held a second review of Ogdensburg Free Academy's revised sports mergers policy at Monday's meeting.

As proposed at the Sept. 19 meeting, a committee of board members met with Athletic Director Anthony Bjork and various coaches to discuss the effects of mergers on various sports.

"I was very happy with the way each of the coaches individually pointed out their views and their specific needs in their sports," said Board President Ronald Johnson.

"Sports mergers have been going wonderfully here. Kids are embracing kids from the other districts. It's pretty positive and I was convinced that any time Bjork brings a merger to us I will be voting yes," Johnson added.

Bjork noted that standard procedure with a merger request is to have a discussion with the team's head coach and figure out the classification before making a recommendation to the board.

Board Vice President Michael Myers, who has often voted against mergers, advocated for a more inclusive merger policy that would open any merged sports to all requesting schools.

"If you want a merger, then you want a merger with everybody," Myers said.

Board member Laurie Zweifel raised the question of revisiting past merger requests that were denied by the board at prior meetings.

Merger requests for the upcoming ice hockey and boys modified lacrosse seasons have recently been denied by the board.

Bjork pointed out that a merger request from Heuvelton Central School for varsity ice hockey, which was denied by the board at a meeting on June 20, was withdrawn after Heuvelton reached a merger agreement with Canton Central School.

While Johnson made a motion to reconsider the denied mergers, board member Michael Tooley made a motion to table the resolution while the district's policy is still under revision.

Johnson agreed with Tooley and withdrew the original motion.

With the upcoming winter sports season beginning on Wednesday, Nov. 9, the board agreed to hold an optional meeting with a limited agenda on Monday, Nov. 7.