If you find a goose with golden eggs, make sure you kill it
You hear the door slam and realize there's nowhere left to run; You feel the cold hand and wonder if you'll ever see the sun
JUNE 26, 2009: It’s about time the city of Watertown stopped taking crap from the town of Watertown.
So to speak.
For those just catching up, the city has a sewage treatment plant. The town doesn’t. The town pumps its effluent to the city for treatment. In return the town gets a bill from the city.
But for years, the town has approved so much development along outer Arsenal Street that the sewer line which leads to the plant is too small to handle the capacity being generated.
And now the city can’t allow more construction — including two hotels within the city limits — along Arsenal Street. Think of it: The whole country is in an economic freefall and Watertown is telling a hotel chain, “Sorry, you and the millions of dollars in construction materials, building fees, salaries, etc., can’t come here.”
The town has no choice but to also nix any more development along outer Arsenal Street. Well, actually it DOES have a choice — it can pay to install a connector line from the vicinity of the Salmon Run Mall to the sewer line that runs down Coffeen Street.
But here is the rub. Town Supervisor Joel “No Town Taxes” Bartlett for years has shown an uncanny ability to approve anything that pays and nothing that costs. All politicians worship at this altar but few have been able to “walk the walk” like Bartlett.
You say New York wants to reduce congestion on outer Arsenal Street by consolidating egress points? Bartlett approved a small shopping plaza — featuring a now defunct car wash — that adds two more egress points along the newly refurbished road.
You say Jefferson County wants the town to put in an access road to connect the mall and Walmart in an effort to, once again, relieve congestion on outer Arsenal Street? Bartlett won’t budge because he would have to eat the cost or foist it off on his tax-paying friends at the mall and Walmart, and where is the payback for that?
You say regional interests want to build apartments that straddle the city limits and have all utility services come from the city? Bartlett tried to block the Summit Woods project because he wanted to put an additional road into the project from the town side of outer Washington Street — man, does this guy LOVE egress! Then he balked again until he could connect half the project to a town water line to ensure half of the residents pay a utility fee to the town and not the city.
(This became an "oops" moment for the town when its water line was determined to be too small to serve the additional customers. Bartlett's Folly cost the town $185,000 to blast through rock to put in a larger line).
For more than 20 years, Esau, I mean the city has been selling water and sewer services to the town and in return has been given a box to live in. Town residents add to the wear and tear of city streets driving to and from their jobs, and they freely use all the services in the city, such as Flower Memorial Library. And if there is a fire at the mall or the Ramada Inn, whose firefighters do you think will be doing the heavy lifting?
But if you ask the town to pay for city bus service to Target and Kohl’s, or clean snow off the sidewalks over the new I-81 bridge that links 30,000 city residents to all those businesses the butter the town’s bread, Bartlett changes the subject.
And don’t get city officials started about the Empire Zone partnership between the city and town. When the town couldn’t hog all the Empire Zone acreage to give away to the owners of the Salmon Run Mall, Bartlett simply cut the town’s share of funding, saying there was little benefit to the program.
In a perverse way, you have to admire Bartlett. Nobody works harder trying to make sure his town gets everything, every time, on someone else’s dime. But in a world of partnerships, cooperation, consolidation and the erasing of 200-year-old borders, his act is getting tiresome.
And now it is costing all of us.
