PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (WCAX) – Election day is four weeks away and voters in Plattsburgh are deciding who will be the next mayor of the Lake City. Former Republican Mayor Donald Kasprzak and Democratic Clinton County Legislator Wendell Hughes faced off Tuesday on the debate stage.
Plattsburgh mayoral candidates Tuesday sparred over issues including the Crete Center demolition, the Mead Reservoir, and recreation in the city.
Kasprzak says he wants the city to bring back the rec department, while Hughes says they may have to look outside the city.
“We have to rebuild, very slowly our recreation parks department. We can no longer force all of these issues on public works. It is not fair and it does not get the job done,” Kasprzak said.
“We need to reinvent recreation. The way I word it, we need to reinvent it in the city of Plattsburgh. Depending on what we have for money, I can not sit here and say, hey, we are going to compete with the Town of Plattsburgh. We are going to put a huge stadium up, that’s not… but maybe we can do a shared service with the town,” Hughes said.
With discussions about whether Plattsburgh’s City Beach should be the home of the former Crete Center, both candidates say something should fill the void.
“I would think some type of amphitheater would be there but it would have three to five thousand people. But then you get into, does that have a return that is best for the city?” Kasprzak said.
“A hotel would be awesome out there, but it comes down, there are so many different controlling factors to that beach and what can we actually have out there,” Hughes said.
And for the first time, both candidates drew attention to the Mead Reservoir, which supplies the city’s water.
“We have plenty of water but that dam either has to be decommissioned — which I wouldn’t do — or spend $14-to-$35 million to fix it. And where we are going to come up with that money? I do not know but this issue is not going away,” Kasprzak said.
“The dam up there — it has been an issue for a while. As chair of the health department, of course, we have the environmental portion of it. So, with Ryan Davies, we have been very involved with that up there and I mean it is a major issue, it is. I mean we had some major water issues a couple years ago we never really got answers for,” Hughes said.
The debate will premiere on Friday at 8 p.m. on Mountain Lake PBS, streaming on the PBS App, and online at mountainlake.org.