BY ANDY GARDNER and JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

CANTON – A five-member committee of legislators will research Ogdensburg’s proposal for St. Lawrence County to take over tax collection and foreclosures for the city.

The committee chair will be Dan Fay, D-Canton. Other members will include legislators Margaret Haggard, D-Potsdam; John Burke, R-Norfolk; and Joe Lightfoot, R-Ogdensburg. Board of Legislators Chairman Bill Sheridan, R-Hammond will also be on the committee, but only to act as a tie-breaking vote, if needed.

Sheridan said they don’t anticipate meeting with the city anytime soon. For now, they’ll be crunching numbers and analyzing various data to see how it could actually work. County department heads may be brought in to answer questions, as needed, Sheridan said.

Several county legislators seem in favor of exploring some sort of shared services agreement in response to a proposal from the City of Ogdensburg. One member of the board accused the city of retaliating over the stalled sales tax distribution negotiations.

The discussion took place Monday, March 1 during the full Board of Legislators meeting.

County Administrator Ruth Doyle said Ogdensburg is asking for the county to consider taking over things like police dispatching and hazardous materials (hazmat) response. The city has also previously requested the county look at taking over their property tax collection and foreclosure.

“The immediate action items are all underway. One resolution was passed tonight. Property tax foreclosure, that’s a complex process,” Doyle said, adding that the city and county operate “on very different calendars and have very different requirements.”

Legislator Joe Lightfoot, R-Ogdensburg, suggested they look to Oswego County, which has a deal with the City of Oswego to auction foreclosed city properties.

Doyle said she could report back to the board on options for sharing hazmat services and dispatching.

Legislator Jim Reagen, R-Ogdensburg, said he thinks, “we can be a model of the rest of the state on how a county and municipalities can work together.”

“We may not be able to do all of them ... I think there’s opportunity as we’ve shown earlier tonight to do some of them, and to streamline services, and in some cases improve services to the people of the county and the people of the city,” he said.

One legislator said he supports shared services, but voiced some skepticism over the city’s proposals.

“I know how important the shared services are. There are very few towns in St. Lawrence County that could exist without shared services of some description,” said Legislator Larry Denesha, R-DeKalb. “I think anyplace we’ve got the ability to share services, we should. I stress: shared services ... I do not support Ogdensburg transferring the cost of something to St. Lawrence County.”

“I support Mr. Denesha’s comments. I agree with him,” said Legislator Margaret Haggard, D-Potsdam.

Legislator Tony Arquiett, D-Helena, said he thinks Ogdensburg is trying to push some of their costs onto the county as revenge for the impasse in negotiating with the county a new sales tax distribution formula.

“I think the elephant in the room is we went through a lengthy, lengthy attempted negotiation with Ogdensburg on sales tax distribution, they refused to come to the table after ... offering them an additional year of increased sales tax revenue they shouldn’t have been getting. This is simply retaliation. This isn’t any attempt to share services,” he said. “I’m interested in doing what we as a county are obligated to do. I’m not interested in offering up shared services ... to a city that had every opportunity in the world to do the best for the people, come to the table with sales tax negotiations, and come out of it with the best deal for the people they could possibly get.”

Throughout the negotiations Ogdensburg made multiple proposals to the county that were not accepted.

Haggard later asked if the shared services proposals could possibly extend to other towns and villages in the county.

“We have the ability through the shared services panel to have those types of conversations,” Doyle said. “The state’s willing, when savings can be demonstrated, to provide some funding to assist with that.”

Following the meeting City Manager Stephen Jellie said he was very appreciative of the county’s decision to investigate shared service.

“The City of Ogdensburg is very appreciative of the St. Lawrence County Board of Legislators action to authorize the County Administrator and County Attorney to work collectively with us on remediation efforts of our waterfront properties. We are grateful for the knowledge and experience that Mrs. Doyle and Mr. Button will bring to this important effort. We should all be very excited about returning these parcels to the tax rolls and restoring the greatness of our St. Lawrence River Waterfront District. We sincerely hope the County will be as willing to expediently act upon the other consolidation and shared services initiatives we put forward. It is the city’s intent to actually see these initiatives cross the finish line so taxpayers in St. Lawrence County and the City can realize the reduction in property taxes so desperately needed. For too many years consolidation and shared services initiatives amounted to little more than giving the image of change while actually not changing at all; we must do better, we must do more and we must do it now,” he said.

But Jellie did take issue with comments made by Arquiett and legislator Kevin Acres.

“The City of Ogdensburg does take issue with the fictional rambling of Legislator Tony Arquiett at Monday’s meeting in reference to the City of Ogdensburg’s efforts to negotiate an agreement on sales tax distribution. His remarks are false to say the least, and a futile attempt at changing a narrative well defined by the actions of both parties. The City of Ogdensburg provided 4 different proposals in response to the County’s initial proposal to take $11M over 10 years from Ogdensburg and each of those were rejected by the County,” he said.

“Mr. Arquitt contributed absolutely nothing to this effort with exception of outright criticism and disdain toward a few of the county legislators that we actually worked in earnest to make a deal. Mr. Arquiett and his close ally Legislator Kevin Acres will not be successful in their continued efforts to stop Ogdensburg from prospering. We do genuinely hope that both of these legislators will remember that Ogdensburg is a large part of St. Lawrence County, and what is good for Ogdensburg is good for St. Lawrence County.”