BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

OGDENSBURG — Ogdensburg City Councilor John Rishe wants to see the state make payments in lieu of taxes on various properties it owns throughout Ogdensburg.

Rishe told council Monday that the state is the “single largest tax-exempt” land holder in the city. And that the state’s holdings are valued at more than $200 million.

He also noted that the state owns over 50 percent of the city’s waterfront property, which is a figure he said surprised him. He said the city is suffering because it is unable to make use of some of its most valuable property.

“These tax exemptions severely hamper the city’s ability to provide governmental services, including public safety, without exceeding its constitutional taxing limit or raising local real property taxes in a city that already has the highest combined tax rate in the North Country and one of the highest combined tax rates in the entire state of New York,” said a resolution put forward by Rishe.

Rishe said the exemptions exceed $8.2 million in lost revenue to the city, county and school district.

But he said the losses are even more due to “their underutilized, blighted, and deteriorating conditions and the fact that they comprise over 50 percent of the city’s valuable St. Lawrence River waterfront, hampering future private sector growth and development.”

Rishe also noted that the state makes PILOT payments to other cities in the state in recognition of their tax-exempt status, including Albany and New York which receives over $22 million annually in PILOT payments.

Rishe questioned how paying PILOTs for some communities but not others was a fair way to do business.

“There is such a stark difference between Albany that has all those state jobs and salaries and employees and citizens you know and us that has blighted buildings that are an eyesore that you can’t do anything with,” he said. “I think we need to make the request.”

Skamperle agreed. He said that there was once a trade-off for jobs, but now the state is holding high-value properties which it is allowing to fall into disrepair and has no intentions of releasing or developing.

“They are taking the jobs and leaving us empty-handed on taxes,” he said. “I’d like to see our state legislators put something together here.”

Mayor Jeffrey M. Skelly said he doesn’t see much hope of the state taking action but didn’t oppose the plan.

Councilor Mike Powers said that the city should put together a plan with a suggested payment model.

While the state holds many properties throughout St. Lawrence County that it does not pay taxes on, Ogdensburg likely bears the biggest burden.

The state has also been negligent in finding reuses for state-owned properties for defunct facilities like waterfront portions of the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center that have fallen into disrepair and more recently the Ogdensburg Correctional Facility which the state closed in March.

For years the city has worked with Sen. Patty Ritchie and others to get the unused land at the psychiatric center back in city possession so it can be prepped for development and sale, but the state has failed to move forward on discussions.

The resolution was largely supported by council, though some more time was requested to better prepare the resolution.

Rishe opted to pull the resolution from the floor but said it will resurface once his fellow councilors help fine tune it.

Rishe said he also floated the idea to Sen. Patty Ritchie, who he says was receptive to the idea. Ritchie, however, is not seeking reelection and will likely be replaced by Assemblyman Mark Walczyk who is running for the Senate seat.

The argument for the state to offer some assistance in lieu of taxes is that they benefit from various services provided by the city such as police and fire and own some of the most valuable land in the city.

“There was a fire at the port last year, who answered? The Ogdensburg Fire Department did. Every time there is an incident at the psych center, it's the city police that go,” Rishe said. “So we are subsidizing the state of New York.”

In 2017, former City Manager Sarah Purdy met with local churches and non-profits who are also exempt from taxes in hopes of establishing PILOTs with them, but the effort was unsuccessful.

Purdy said many of the organizations she met with were facing similar struggles in the city.

Purdy noted in a grant application from 2017 that more than 60 percent of Ogdensburg’s property is tax-exempt, which she said was the second highest of any city in New York State.

She said further troubling is that 40 percent of the property owners were paying 100 percent of the taxes and the city’s poverty rate was more than 23 percent of the total population.