BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

OGDENSBURG — City Councilors voted against creating a plan for restructuring the police and fire departments or changing the city’s designation to a village or town.

During the contentious meeting City Manager Stephen Jellie played news clips from his predecessor Sarah Purdy warnings about city finances councilors were urged to take action on a variety of initiatives to curtail spending.

That led to arguments between councilors and Jellie regarding the actions taken in years prior to 2019 aimed at fixing the problem.

Among the proposals made by Jellie was coming up with a plan to restructure the Ogdensburg Fire Department for a model that would use both volunteers and paid firefighters.

Another proposal would have had city staff come up with a plan to transition Ogdensburg police department under the umbrella of the St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department.

Both resolutions failed with Councilors Michael Powers, Nichole Kennedy, Dan Skamperle and John Rishe voting against.

Rishe said that he would consider investigating a hybrid fire department model based on the outcome of a Court of Appeals decisions regarding minimum staffing and after studying the issue to determine feasibility.

Rishe similarly said that if the city wanted to investigate bringing police under the purview of St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department, he would like to have discussions with all entities involved rather than pass a resolution to create a plan.

The meeting was riddled with back and forth comments from Jellie and councilors in many cases councilors were accused of inaction by the city manager.

In return councilor Powers “reminded” Jellie that he worked for the council as an employee.

The manner in which Jellie addressed council was also condemned by caller Penny Sharrow who said that Jellie should not speak to council in the manner that he does.

The council also briefly discussed whether the city could be more financially viable as a village rather than a city, but the resolution to investigate the manner failed 1-6 with councilor Bill Dillabough in support.

Several resolutions that would have established liaisons for various entities including the county, state, school and federal representatives also failed.

Skelly argued that appointing liaisons would likely result in more steady and substantial communication and hoped it would result in more action.

However, councilors Kennedy, Powers, Skamperle and Rishe believed that all councilors should be able to speak on behalf of the city and that liaisons appointments were unnecessary.