Challenge?

As promoted by Monique Tirion

Today someone stopped me on the street in order to ask, with a fair amount of frustration: “Why can’t the village emtpy the garbage cans downtown on weekends? Look! They overflow every weekend and it looks embarrassing, especially with parents and all the visitors around!” Having relieved that frustration, but still shaking the head, the interrogator continued walking towards Market St.

As I too continued walking, I considered various courses of action. Should I inform the head of the Department of Public Works? In all likelihood he would say there is no budget for weekend trash pickups. (How much might it cost to add that to the budget?) If the village budget doesn’t cover weekend trash pickups, is there any other agency that might help, an agency in whose interest it is to have a clean and safe downtown? How about the Chamber of Commerce? They are situated right on Market St…

But sadly I admitted that pursuing this project would not be a good use of my time. With meetings the next day to try and resolve gnarly water/sewer billing issues, and a public meeting on spending ARPA funds that would benefit from a careful perusal of a possible contract to speed up closure of the East Hydrodam’s gating system, required most of my attention the next few days.

Perhaps the pursuit of avenues to clarify why trash barrels downtown overflow on weekends, and how to remedy that, might be fun for an enterprising individual? Someone with a bit of time on their hands, a basic curiosity about how things work and a fair amount of patience to accrue the requisite information to enact change, might enjoy the challenge? Potsdam is filled with enterprising students and retirees and business owners and involved parents; perhaps someone else finds this type of civic service rewarding?

The vi.potsdam.ny.us website provides any number of email addresses and phone numbers, to get started.