Efforts made to revitalize city, quality of life

By Kevin Stump
Broken bottles on sidewalks, street signs ripped from the ground, party cups and litter sprinkled over the street, apartment buildings with water leaks, caved in walls and stray cats everywhere, flowers uprooted, evidence of urine and vomit on porch’s, cigarette butts on lawns and a police blotter in the paper that rolls on each weekend reflecting the quality of life in the Plattsburgh inner city and downtown area.
Over the last few years there have been several initiatives to economically, socially and physically rebuild or restore the Plattsburgh inner city and down town areas and the overall quality of life.
In collaboration with the college, District Attorneys office, CVPH, city police department and a small group of concerned community members, city court judge Penny Clute has helped to create a progressive program called Restorative Justice. The program is used as a sentence from the city court involving young people who have been charged with minor city violations or “quality life crime” said Assistant District Attorney Domenca Padula who facilitates the program once a month.
“This is a time for the victims to tell their story and for the offenders to sit and listen,” she said.
However, revitalizing this community requires more than simply addressing the ‘quality of life crimes,’ but also an understanding of how and why these issues continue to lessen the quality of life.
The root of many of the issues Plattsburgh faces is economics. Since the completion of interstate 87 in the late 1960s, businesses have positioned themselves conveniently alongside the flow of traffic uptown. Therefore the downtown area has become “nothing but bars and alcohol, you must give students an alternative excuse to go downtown without using their fake ID,” said Bill Laundry, SUNY Plattsburgh Vice President of Student Affairs. Laundry also co-chairs the Campus and Community Partnership, which aims at fostering respectful, responsible, and productive citizens and is responsible for the “4 or Fewer” campaign to help people drink alcohol more responsibly. He feels the standard of living has also gone down because of population density in the inner city area. More density living requires a great deal of collaboration from the tenants and landlords to help keep houses and streets clean and neat, however this does not always happen and is difficult to enforce or facilitate.
“It’s like they sold their soul to make money,” said city clerk Keith Herkalo who was referring to the Plattsburgh inner city landlords. Before the center city houses became college style apartment buildings, the area was made up of Victorian style homes occupied by single families. Herkalo believes that over the last few decades there has been a “decline in the character of the neighborhoods” resulting in a decline of the overall quality of life.
The building inspector Rick Perry feels that many of the community issues occur from a lack of communication. “Very rarely do students come to city hall with their problems,” said Perry who now holds office hours on campus once a month to help better communication. Inspections are required every three years for a rental, however within a span of three years there are six to ten different tenants (or groups) living in one apartment, it is difficult for the building inspector and landlords to determine who is at fault for the broken window, or stained carpet, causing apartments and houses to become neglected over time.
Perry has had the same number of staff since the 1980s but the amount of work is constantly increasing because of government regulations and the overall population density of the inner city area. The quality of apartments has diminished over time due to the lack of personnel that would help enforce the level of upkeep and codes of the community, therefore decreasing the level of overall respect people have for where they live. The city could use more staff or money to employ more inspection hours. The building inspector oversees all of the construction and development projects in the city in addition to the residential construction and code enforcement.
“Plattsburgh has lost that sense of home,” said Mike White, chair of the City Campus Coalition, which seeks to enhance relations between SUNY Plattsburgh and the surrounding community.
Like building inspector Rick Perry, White also feels the root of the issues facing the Plattsburgh community comes from a lack of communication.
“There needs to be an effective relationship between the college, local government and community residents,” White said.
If all three aspects are communicating and working together then as he says, “the tri-pod of effectiveness will be unstoppable.”
The Coalition recently hosted “Meet Your Neighbors” located at four different Fraternity houses, which was geared toward establishing a positive relationship with the neighborhoods. “Although the city has been somewhat lackadaisical, rather than point blame we should try to unite everyone,” said White. Since the “Meet Your Neighbors” event was a success for the coalition, the next step is to start working on the beautification of the downtown area.
Public restrooms, more garbage cans throughout the inner city, more adequate lighting, and street cameras could solve a lot of the quality of life issues addressed by several different initiatives (Partnership, Coalition, and Restorative Justice). The complexities of restoring the Plattsburgh community require understanding and acknowledgment of the issues and more importantly, a political will to change and better the quality of life in Plattsburgh.