Vanishing Liberty?

Police department a major issue

By FRITZ MAYER

LIBERTY, NY — Taxes in the Village of Liberty are notoriously high. For a house with a market value of about $150,000, total taxes run in the area of $6,500. For the same house in the Town of Liberty, outside the village limits, the taxes would range in the $4,500 neighborhood.

In an effort to bring down the taxes in the village, and otherwise save money and generate efficiencies, consultants have been looking at ways that the town and the village can share services or cooperate to save money.

The results of a study were presented to about 150 residents of both municipalities at the Liberty Senior Center on October 16, with several options for moving forward.

In most options, village residents would save tax money but residents of the town outside the village (TOV) would spend more. In one option, the savings for the residents of the $150,000 house would be as much as $1,315 per year. But TOV residents would pay higher taxes, ranging up to $422 per year.

The most financially attractive options for village residents call for dissolving the village, getting rid of the mayor, the trustees, the village attorney and other village employees, and having the town government take over management of the village.

A couple of TOV residents asked who would be able to vote on whether the village would dissolve itself. Dennis Rapp of the Hudson Group, one of the entities that prepared the study, answered that only village residents could vote on the question and that under current state law, if the village elected to dissolve, the town government would have no choice but to accept responsibility for the governance of the village, which would then become a hamlet. This brought a negative reaction from various TOV residents.

There is one scenario under which TOV residents would pay fewer taxes if the village dissolves, and that involves the two municipalities gaining a grant from the state that is handed out to encourage municipalities to share services. But members of the joint study committee, comprised of residents and officials of both municipalities, could not guarantee that the municipalities would win the grant of nearly $1 million or that the grant would continue to be awarded over many years.

During the comment section, the future of the village police department became an important issue. One option calls for the police department to be dissolved and the policing activity of the village to be covered by the sheriff’s office or the state police, perhaps with an arrangement whereby the town could pay the other police forces to provide additional coverage to the village area.

Another plan called for changing the police department to cover the entire town.

A third called for maintaining the department as is, to serve only the village, through the creation of a special police district.

In one option, which calls for the village and town to share some services but for the village to remain otherwise intact, there would be no change to the police department.

Liberty Police Chief Robert Mir spoke out forcefully against disbanding the 16-member force. He said on a per capita basis, Liberty is the busiest police force in the state. Several village residents spoke out in favor of keeping the police department.

Village judge Harold Bauman also voiced opposition to merging the village justice court with the town justice court, saying that the village court handles 905 arrests per year, more than twice what the town justice court currently handles.

The Hudson Group will take the comments presented at the meeting and in writing, and work them into a final report due before the end of the year. The two local governments must then decide which path to pursue.

Village of Liberty Mayor Rube Smith told the crowd that he would be looking for guidance from village residents and state agencies before the board of trustees decides whether either the question of dissolution or shared services, or both, would be put to a village referendum.