There are four candidates for three seats on the Ogdensburg City Council.

Each of the candidates has his own ideas on the direction the city should be going.

But there are differences of opinion as to how to meet the challenges of getting there.
 
Mike Morley has been on the council for the last 10 years and for the past year serving as deputy mayor.

He says his experience sets him apart from the other candidates.

Morley says the city's precarious financial condition will require some tough choices to be made involving taxes, services and jobs.
 
"The most grievous tax we have is property tax because only the people that own property pay it. The other people don't pay it. We always try to keep costs down and I try to do that," said Morley.
 
Dan Skamperle is a newcomer to politics but says he offers a fresh set of ideas for moving the city forward.

He wants to see more attention given to waterfront development.
 
"Let's attack it full force, clean up our waterfront, all of our waterfront, do everything we possibly can to promote economic development here. If the state's going to remove empire zones, maybe we can create our own," said Skamperle.
 
Bob Flavin says property owners are already burdened with high taxes.

He says the city needs to find ways to get more property back on the tax rolls and keeping taxes affordable.
 
"You can only tax people so much and then what's going to happen is they won't be able to pay their taxes, they're going to default and one of two things are going to happen: they're going to lose their homes or they're going to move out of town," said Flavin.
 
Long-time rescue squad volunteer R. Storm Cilley says he decided to run for city council because he wanted to continue giving something back to the community.

He sees the city needing to be more creative when it comes to economic development.
 
"We have to find a way to work with private developers to get some tax base in here. You can't run a city on a residential tax base. It's just not sound business practice," said Cilley.
 
While the candidates all agree on the need for more jobs and a broader tax base, they are split on whether the city should start charging a fee to use the municipal pool.

Both Flavin and Cilley are against setting a pool fee while Morley and Skamperle say they would support charging fees for using the pool.