Friday, April 23, 2021 - 2:13 pm
BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week
OGDENSBURG – Ogdensburg City Manager Stephen Jellie says he’s completed the investigation of 14 workplace violent reports for 2020 and all matters are now closed.
Jellie says that two complaints were withdrawn and 12 were fully reviewed and investigated.
“Only 1 of 12 complaints received allege physical contact, an incident that occurred on 9 December 2020 between then suspended Fire Captain Gerald Mack and Mayor Jeffrey Skelly,” he said in a prepared statement. “That complaint was immediately reported to the New York State Police for investigation, and is awaiting final disposition in Town of Fowler court. The city’s investigation of this matter found no intentional contact or threat of violence. Video footage obtained from the New York State Courts provides evidence of an intentional effort by Mr. Mack to impede Mayor Skelly from entering city hall to conduct a schedul
Even though the stock market has been booming and the corporate media is full of talk about “recovery”, there are many communities in the United States where a permanent atmosphere of despair seems to hang in the air. The federal government gives us doctored numbers that show that the national unemployment rate is low, but in small towns all across the country it seems like almost everyone is either unemployed or working extremely low paying jobs. Earlier this month, one such town was profiled by USA Today. Even before the COVID pandemic came along, the little town of Ogdensburg, New York was deeply struggling, but now economic conditions have become extremely dire…
Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - 9:15 am
BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week
OGDENSBURG – A debate over Ogdensburg Public Library Board of Trustees appointments got heated Monday after the mayor took no action on the matter despite requests from the public.
Several members of the public called on Mayor Jeffrey M. Skelly to appoint candidates recommended by the Ogdensburg Library Board of Trustees to fill three seats on their board.
“The appointments to the library board are absolutely the mayor’s and confirmed by the city council,” City Manager Stephen Jellie told board members. “That is the law sent to me by Michelle McLagan, their board president.”
Tuesday, April 13, 2021 - 1:17 pm
BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week
OGDENSBURG – Using 2019 data from the state comptroller, Ogdensburg officials are hoping to get an estimate on how much sales tax the city will collect when it preempts the St. Lawrence County on collections.
City Manager Stephen Jellie said accountants at Gray and Gray are sifting through 2019 sales tax collections for every business in the county to figure out how much sales tax is generated within the city limits.
Unfortunately, the data available from the state is limited. He says the state does not have any granular data for any level of municipality smaller than county. Additionally, some entities like Walmart and other big box stores report all of their data for their stores as one figure, so specific data on collections of Ogdensburg’s Walmart and Price Chopper would have to be guessed.