BY JIMMY LAWTON

North Country This Week

OGDENSBURG - Ogdensburg City Councilor Dan Skamperle would like to see the city consider making the city more friendly to snowmobilers.

At a recent council meeting he asked City Manager Stephen Jellie if the city could investigate what would need to be done to allow snowmobiles to cross the white bridge.

Skamperle said he’s been contacted by “quite a few people from the snowmobile clubs” on the matter.

“Getting across the river, they talked about how dangerous that is,” he said.

He asked if it would be possible to leave the southside sidewalk unplowed to allow snowmobilers a safe river crossing.

He said currently to get across the city, snowmobilers must go all the way to Heuvelton.

Skamperle said he believes making the city more accessible would be good for local businesses that could use the business.

”Snowmobiling is big business this time of year,” he said.

He said he would also like to investigate other areas the city could modify to improve access such as connecting the two trails that currently exist in the city, one near Napa and one near United Helpers.

“I don’t know if in the long term we want to allow certain passageways in the city or not,” he said.

He pointed out that such crossings exist on some highways which include snowmobile crossings with special surfaces.

“If we could look at that and coordinate with different departments?” he asked. “I know there are some guys in Ogdensburg that would like to have some input on that as well.”

Jellie said he’d reach out to one of the snowmobile clubs and go from there.