By Dan King
A contentious discussion about a potential nuisance law led one village trustee to contemplate his role on the board.
Village Trustee Ken Bartholomew was none too pleased with the manner in which the discussion at the Sept. 2 board meeting was conducted and has decided to slow his role within the board.
“I am not resigning from the board. I am just stepping back from the highly active role I have maintained to date,” Bartholomew stated.
His decision to step back his activity caught many of the board members off guard and essentially sucked the air out of the room.
“We’ve never known you as one to quit at anything,” Village Trustee Michael LaChapelle said.
All village board members were tasked with reading some nuisance laws that were currently in place in other municipalities and compiling their thoughts on the laws, in order to discuss and potentially draft a similar law for the village.
The discussion became slightly heated, particularly between Bartholomew and Mayor Peter Telisky, who disagreed vehemently on the merits of the nuisance law used for the city of Glens Falls.
Telisky is highly supportive of the Glens Falls model, while Bartholomew was skeptical to say the least.
Bartholomew told Telisky, “Show me any part of that Glens Falls law and I guarantee I can find something wrong with it.”
As the discussion went further, Bartholomew felt that his opinions on the law were being blatantly disregarded by his fellow board members, so he chose to quit talking about the subject at hand.
“I spent many hours reading and compiling my observations and reasoning. After all that, it was apparent to me that my time had been wasted.” Bartholomew explained, “I am not interested in wasting my time. I will continue to attend all meetings and contribute when appropriate, but be much less active in the daily activities involved in village operations.”
Future of the nuisance law discussion
After the debate over the nuisance laws simmered down, Telisky asked any board members who had a law they liked to bring a copy of that law to the next village board meeting. The next meeting will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 16.
Village Trustee Walt Sandford will be bringing forth the Fort Edward nuisance law, because he has “seen it work in another community already.”
“There was a house on Broadway in Fort Edward that had a lot of drug and criminal activity going on, and this law really cracked down on it,” Sandford said.
Telisky will be bringing in pieces of the Glens Falls, Hudson Falls and Newark laws. He hopes to create a “point-based system” to address issues of degradation and unsightly properties in the village.
The goal of these laws is to help deter dilapidation of buildings and stymie drug sales and other criminal activity from taking place at these locations.
“There are still a lot of properties I am concerned about.” Telisky said, “Creating a law for this will be a long process.”