A bit of history is made as a village of significant size and community character votes to dissolve itself and cease to exist as a municipal entity. By a narrow vote, Seneca Falls will disappear and just be part of the township it sits in. The promise of lower taxes because of a nearby privately owned landfill prompted the move under a recently passed state law that allows village residents to initiate a measure to dissolve.
Seneca Falls residents vote to abolish village
10 comments:
I always thought this was a good idea, Villages were once a mainstay of the community, not any more more were a mobile society. One will only hope this will be repeated with all the VFD's, police Depts., and other taxing entities in the County.
I live in Ogdensburg. I surely feel this would be a great idea. It would have to absolutely have to ease our tax load considerably. I cant figure how history got us City status. Other communities up here have lots more to offer their residents then Ober.. I wont blame the mayor but he certainly is partof the reason and he dont seem to be any of the solution. When you hold a five to two party majority for years and go backwards it speaks volumes for your leadership. We have a paid fire dept. A much larger community and most smaller communities up here are volunteer. Police here are a circus.. Its about How many can get the day off, and how many can work overtime in their place so they can get days off later? Wow.
That recently passed state law changes the number of village registered voters from 33% to 10% that are necessary to sign a petition that would require that village dissolution be put on the ballot at the next election.
Soon and bound to happen with many NNY villages because 10% is an easily reachable number;
AND IT MAKES SENSE!! How many village taxpayers in NNY wouldn't want their taxes to drop by 50 to 75 percent. Only village taxpayers are allowed to vote.
i have to confess i'm pretty ill-informed about the fine details here, but on the surface this sounds like a great idea.
7:58 you should get the right information. Taxpayers in Seneca Falls will save less then $50 a year and lose all control of there services. How much do you thikn the town budget is going to go up now that they have to take over all services the village was offering. New equipment they will have to buy, new employees they will have to hire and some services you get now will be lost.
The real answer is village residents SHOULD NOT have to pay town taxes. Villages are on of the most accountable forms of government. What do village residents really get for the taxes they pay there town???
As the population center of the township, the town councilmembers will come from that area formerly known as the village....That means the services will continue and the entire town tax base, including the landfill, will help support them.
This is a great deal for village people....but those who have fled to towns to save money will have to hang on to their wallets.
They did the math and the most the village residents are going to save in the end is less then $50 dollars and tha is only some of them. And they are going to lose some services. Where is that a great deal??
Opps, old law was 30% not 33%, sorry, also new law states no accepted dissolution plan is necessary before vote whereas plan used to have to be agreed on before vote. Look at perry sound, the savings would have been alot more than $50 even though it got defeated. In the 3 dissolution plans voted on in NY yesterday (2 passed, 1 defeated)all of the plans called for no village taxpayers losing any services. Those village services were maintained completely. Read all the facts 10:27. And nowwhere did i read they would be hiring more employees. MOST dissolution plans call for absorbing dpw,tres, water, sewer etc employees. Only empoloyees lost are board members, mayor, deputy mayor and some part timers. It varies according to size of village. We need to talk in percentages because you may be right about less than $50 if assesment was $20,000.
Why can't we vote to abolish albany? I'ld be the first to sign the petition.
Here's an interesting thought, abolish all the Townships in the county, ONE GOVERNMENT. With all the problems this is an idea whose time has come.
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