The Plattsburgh Common Council was set to consider a revised five-year plan for 2024 to 2029 on Thursday. But the item was withdrawn before the meeting started. Democratic Mayor Chris Rosenquest discussed that and other city issues with WAMC’s North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley:
Per the charter the five-year plan is presented to council by June 1. That was presented as normal, sent to council for review. There was a couple councilors that wanted more time. Just providing more time withdrew it. You know, I think for the five-year plan and for people to understand the intention and the purpose of it, it's not a binding document. It's more of a guiding document, something that we can look at historically what's happened and some information that we currently have to project out what we expect to happen. So really it is just a guide. So postponing it for a couple of weeks is not that big of a deal. Not ideal. But it does allow councilors to have more time with the document to understand it a little bit more.
Are there any major changes that they need to review or that the public will see in it?
No major changes. I think one thing that we did this year, that diverges from years past, is rather than building a internally created document we're using the New York State Comptroller's guide for a five year plan, which is a bit more comprehensive, a bit more accurate. We're also including water, sewer fund that and then a summary of all funds over the next five years, as well as looking back historically at the last five years. So we hope that it's going to be a bit more accurate than previously used five-year plan documents. And because it's something that we've obtained through the comptroller's office, we find that it could be a little bit more standardized and more widely accepted New York state standard that most municipalities use this document.
Mayor, something that came up during new business at the end of the meeting, the assessment and some of the comments that the councilors are getting regarding that. How much oversight does the city council and your administration have over the assessment?
We don't have much oversight and I think it's a cautionary tale to have too much control over assessed values. One thing we don't want to do is we don't want to unnaturally inflate or deflate assessed values. We do want to have a mechanism with which assessed values and assessments are done. We want to make sure that it's done consistently and I think that may be some of the concern that some councilors have: well, why are these people getting assessed 10% higher and these people getting assessed 0% higher? One thing to also understand and this is nuanced, and it takes a lot, it certainly takes me every single year to remind myself on how this works is the difference between the assessed value, the tax rate, and the levy. These are all combined in some fashion to produce the taxable income or the tax income that the city receives from assessed value. So even if your property might be assessed 10% if the tax rate reduces, you should not see much more of an increase than you saw the year prior for your tax bill. And I think that's a challenging concept to get our heads around. It is complex. It is something that we hash out every single year when the tax bill comes out. But right now what we're looking at is an increase in commercial property assessments for the 2024 tax roll. July 1 is when that tax roll is certified for the following year. And we'll be able to take a look at some preliminary numbers for what our new mill rate or new tax rate will look like going into next year's budget.
How will you be able to address some of the complaints or concerns that have been expressed about the current reassessment?
Yeah, you know, there is a mechanism for grieving, for grieving assessments that does address some of those concerns for higher assessed values. But you know, there again, there's not much of a lever that my office has or the council has, or a legislative body of any municipality has, to tell an assessor don't do that.
At the time we're talking the city beach is open. The Crete Center is not completely down and I remember the last time I talked to you said by the time the beach opened it would be flattened. There would be nothing there. What's happened with the schedule for removing the Crete Memorial Civic Center?
Sure, yup, that was the goal. The goal was to have the Crete down and the beach cleaned up before Memorial Day opening. Construction cycles happen. Resources are pulled in multiple different directions when it comes to contractors. That's just kind of the nature of it. And fortunately when I'm out here saying yeah, we want it down by this day and it doesn't happen I’ve got kind of like, you know, egg on my face a little bit. But we still plan on having the property cleaned up before, now, the end of June. That's the new target. That's what we're being told by the contractor. And again, our goal is to start from scratch, start with a blank canvas and start to envision what does our beach really need moving forward? Our goal right now, and I think what we're obligated to do, is to focus on what the future of that property should be. How should it serve our community? How should it serve visitors and start to realize that that new vision for what the city beach should be.
Is the deconstruction going smoothly or have the contractors reported any problems?
Not that I know of. As far as I know, there have been no major issues that they've run into. It's going as smoothly as tearing a big building down goes. And again, we'll just continue to monitor and press on a completion date before the end of June.
Now while you're deconstructing the Crete Memorial Civic Center, you're in the process of building part of the Saranac River Trail and I believe the construction on that is doing pretty well right now.
Yeah, so there's a combination of work that we're doing especially downtown. So for those folks who have been downtown to Margaret street, I’ve got to say Margaret Street is still open. The businesses are still open. Please come down and visit us down here in downtown Plattsburgh. And in combination, in conjunction I should say with the Margaret Street redevelopment is the Riverwalk project, which is part of the DRI (Downtown Revitalization Initiative). It's going to be one of the last public facing projects of the DRI. It will be done by the end of this year. The Riverwalk itself connects Saranac River Trail phase two, which ends at Durkee Street, Durkee and Broad, and it allows continued access to the Saranac River right in the heart of our downtown. It's a $1.6 million project, I believe my memory serves me. And again, this is one of the most public beautification projects that we will have in downtown Plattsburgh and it's very nice to see. That Riverwalk will connect Saranac River Trail phase three and Saranac River Trail phase three will continue through Green Street down to Harborside and connect the rest of the city to Peace Point Park. So we're looking at adding a significant amount of additional walking trails, public access to the river and waterfront. And there's an overall nice placemaking project for our city and visitors.
You mentioned the Margaret Street reconstruction. The physical reconstruction appears to be going okay. How are you helping the businesses get through this?
I would just say it's going a little bit more than okay. We have put all of the new water infrastructure on Margaret Street. We're starting the tie in of that new infrastructure to that many of these buildings. We ran into a little bit of a problem. Last week we had a water main break on Brinkerhoff. That's to happen. That happens sometimes. That's what we get when we start digging things out of the ground. But that project is going well. We have several crews doing replacement of sewer lines as well as new water lines on both Margaret, Brinkerhoff and Court Streets. Right now, I'm down there every single day. I'm talking to one business owner or another. I'm walking around seeing how the project is going, making sure that it's going smooth and making sure it's going safe. Just yesterday, I was at Old Soul just talking to Katie over there. And yeah, businesses are struggling. They’re seeing some dip in in traffic. I've talked to some businesses who have seen no dip in traffic and no dip in sales. So it is varying depending on what the business is. But what we do is we just try to keep our ear to the ground, see how we can help in any way shape or form. On the flip side of the funding piece and the monetary support, we have a couple of meetings with local development agencies to figure out what the level of partnership is there and figure out if there is a mechanism to find additional funding, grant funding, or low interest loans for some of these businesses that do need that support and we'll continue to press on that. And more importantly we do ask people to continue to come downtown, shop at your favorite restaurant, order take out, come downtown on the weekend. Construction is over on the weekend. So there's still plenty to do down here as we as we improve our infrastructure.
Regular updates on Plattsburgh’s Margaret Street reconstruction project are posted on the city’s website.
