any help on amsterdam? (Lee, Broadalbin: chapel, homes, neighborhoods)

[Moosehead]

No more rug city, now its drug city!

When you have lived somewhere for 30 years and things seem to only get worse, its hard to think positive!

[yoohoo]

I have to agree about the drugs in Amsterdam. People are using heroin!!! It makes me sad for these people. Does it reflect on the city as a whole? Growing up in Amsterdam was a good experience. It was a wholesome, friendly place. Good neighborhoods, good schools. Downtown was always busy. Families were close.I remember when the factories started closing. Thats when Amsterdam started taking a nosedive. All these years, no one did anything to make it better. If there are people that are interested and truly care in improving this city, it would be a blessing. It will take a long time. Everything needs to be touched, and that takes a ton of money. I can only hope for the best for the people of Amsterdam!

[sheridan21]

My Dad brought me down for his 30th high school graduation in 1985 we had the time of our lives I was able to meet many of his high school friends there we had some pictures taken together I was hoping I could be sent one that would be great My Dad passed away in 2001 He could not handdle the 911 attacks in Semptember and died of a heart attack in October the same year. He went to St.Mary's high school My name is Thomas Sheridan and my father is Patrick Sheridan if anyone remembers this or has a picture please help me with this it was the best weekend we ever spent together thank loved Little horn big horn you can reach me at sabrinatremblay99@hotmail.com thanks

[McLeod5]

I moved here with my family 6 months ago. We sold our house in Queens moved to Vegas then onto Portland Or. We wanted to get back to NY as we realized this is the only place for us. We foolishly picked Amsterdam as our "landing spot" to get back to NY.
I have to agree with most of the posts about the feel of Amsterdam. It is depressing, more so the longer we are here. We went off of the word of a realtor (again foolish) who told us this was a great buy. HAAHAHA jokes on us I guess. We arrived on Division St to see our new house and found that it was definetly not the kind of nieghborhood be were lead to belive. The house itself has potential but is in terrible condition.
We hate it here. There is nothing to do. I feel forced to shop at Walmart as there is nothing else around. The Riverfront park that seems to be the best spot in the city is well, ok, nothing special.
We are already looking to get out of here ASAP.
I do believe there is potentail here, if the community will come together and force it to change. That said we are not going to give up on Amsterdam entirely. We are going to rehab this house and keep it as a rental, but we are going to move.
I would like to be a part the rebirth of Amsterdam, it has beautiful housing and could have a very nice downtown area if all goes well. The problem is this, it seems like people don't really care much if the whole city gets bulldozed. Honestly I just said to my husband that if a bomb were dropped in downtown not many people would notice a differce, it may even look a little better.

I would like to think that Amsterdam can change. I grew up in Portland OR and it was pretty much a dump. What a difference it is now. The big thing that I saw happen there is community involvement. Neighbors getting together and helping to fix up houses, planting trees, flowers and community clean ups. Once things started to look nicer money started comming in. Places that you would not go to 10 years ago now have condos starting at $400k. BIG CHANGE!

Come on Amsterdam we too can do this. It doesn't cost anything to get involved. And yes I will be contacting the person who posted before about community involvment.

I hope my thoughts came out clearly--it's hard to think let alone write when you have two sick and very grumpy children. =)

[NewBeginnings12]

Originally Posted by McLeod5

I moved here with my family 6 months ago. We sold our house in Queens moved to Vegas then onto Portland Or. We wanted to get back to NY as we realized this is the only place for us. We foolishly picked Amsterdam as our "landing spot" to get back to NY.
I have to agree with most of the posts about the feel of Amsterdam. It is depressing, more so the longer we are here. We went off of the word of a realtor (again foolish) who told us this was a great buy. HAAHAHA jokes on us I guess. We arrived on Division St to see our new house and found that it was definetly not the kind of nieghborhood be were lead to belive. The house itself has potential but is in terrible condition.
We hate it here. There is nothing to do. I feel forced to shop at Walmart as there is nothing else around. The Riverfront park that seems to be the best spot in the city is well, ok, nothing special.
We are already looking to get out of here ASAP.
I do believe there is potentail here, if the community will come together and force it to change. That said we are not going to give up on Amsterdam entirely. We are going to rehab this house and keep it as a rental, but we are going to move.
I would like to be a part the rebirth of Amsterdam, it has beautiful housing and could have a very nice downtown area if all goes well. The problem is this, it seems like people don't really care much if the whole city gets bulldozed. Honestly I just said to my husband that if a bomb were dropped in downtown not many people would notice a differce, it may even look a little better.

I would like to think that Amsterdam can change. I grew up in Portland OR and it was pretty much a dump. What a difference it is now. The big thing that I saw happen there is community involvement. Neighbors getting together and helping to fix up houses, planting trees, flowers and community clean ups. Once things started to look nicer money started comming in. Places that you would not go to 10 years ago now have condos starting at $400k. BIG CHANGE!

Come on Amsterdam we too can do this. It doesn't cost anything to get involved. And yes I will be contacting the person who posted before about community involvment.

I hope my thoughts came out clearly--it's hard to think let alone write when you have two sick and very grumpy children. =)

Im curious..... anything come of this? Are you still in Amsterdam?

[West Point]

I grew up in Amsterdam, left in the late 70s. I attended the Academy Street School (closed), Thodore Ros Jun High(torn down) and then on to the old high schoool on the hill and they built a new one for us. I left because of what was obvious then and more obvious now. In 2003 I sold my house in Maryland moved to Glenville NY close to Amsterdam and after 3 months I realized I just made the biggest mistake in my life. Glenville is a nice place to live just like Amsterdam the only difference is that homes are spread out. Drugs are rampid everywhere and anywhere you go, I have 5 children and they do explore options, however my children do know the difference. The Mayor Joe Emmanuel is from a good family and he was a friend of younger years. You, the Mayor, the Police and anyone else who tries to change Amsterdam have fought New York and its lawyers, the Police put up with more BS than you can imagine and the Mayor is controlled by the laws of NY. You as the new or old of Amsterdam can paint a turd yellow and under it is a turd, i sold my house this past summer and got the hell outa there before my children became victims too. Its like I am a victim of domestic violence and want more torture, run why you can still read!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[debrocks1]

I grew up in Amsterdam NY for 35 years and I am a proud teacher in the district. It is very hurtful to hear about how TERRIBLE our school district really is. I live in Delmar and still commute each day to teach here because it is my home and family. Amsterdam will always be in my heart. This is why I stay here. Our elementary schools are wonderful. Recently I had a conversation with my neighbor and she asked me what school district I work for? I told her Amsterdam, she responded she hears great things about our elementary schools and she is a teacher outside of the area. We need to begin looking at positive things in our community and put more energy in it. Do you ever wonder why people are so miserable here? LACK OF RESPECT. This is major in our community. If you begin with just respecting each other that is a great start. People are very rude including the children in H.S. I call them children because they act like children. Respect needs to begin at home.. if you don't have this it is difficult. I teach respect each day to my students because they might need to give back to Amsterdam someday. Change begins with yourself, so please don't write how horrible our schools are because we are given students from every background in a small classroom, with old supplies from 1972, with special ed children without aides or help, parents with limited english, very low income children without proper clothes AND ARE EXPECTED TO HAVE THEM SUCCED? I would like some of the people in the community to walk in my shoes for one whole day... when you do this then you can say how horrible our schools are. They are the most hard working, loving, caring, dedicated individuals you will ever meet, trust me I am one of them and work each day with pride that I made a difference in a
AMSTERDAM YOUNG CHILD. Instead of moaning, help with the change, look at yourself.

[Joanna Masco]

To Rug City...
I am interseted in buying a house or two in Amsterdam. My husband and I buy old houses and he fixes them up. We hold onto them as rentals. I saw there is a house on High street...under 10,000 dollars and on Varoom Street. From all that I read it seems it may be wise to hold unto a house for a long time in Amsterdam...until it becomes rehabilitated. I noticed your letters are from over a year ago...Are you still out there
rug city?
Joanna Masco

[BBOBCAT]

The teachers in Amsterdam are not the problem. They do a fantastic job even though the deck is stacked against them. The real problem with Amsterdam schools is poor leadership and the fact that most people in the city do not place a high value on a quality education. When the school board voted to close my childs school, most people in Amsterdam agreed that this was a good decision. As a result we moved away so our child could get a quality education. Good riddance to the crappy schools and the miserable incompetant fools who control them.(not the teachers)

[RockBuilt]

I wish I had know of this site when this thread was actually going on. The debate with Rug City is very enlightening. All I am hearing is one person that is in love with the way the city is progressing (slow as it may be) and the masses with their oppinions of how bad Amsterdam is.
I personally fall in the middle of this debate. I do believe that in its present condition, Amsterdam leaves a lot to be desired. But, Amsterdam is prime for revitalization.
I do not believe that building a water front park or rehabilitating an old wind mill is going to make things any better. It is a facade that really does nothing to improve the actual quality of life on a full time scale. It just sucks up resources to maintain and takes away from other more important issues. Thats not to say that things of this nature are not important, but it is not as important as the more major problems going on in this city.
For years I have tried to justify investing my money in this city. Everytime I do, I try to discuss different ideas and thoughts with various figure heads of the city. The posters that stated the problems of communicating with anyone in the town hall are for the most part correct. The only one I have not personally talked to is the mayor himself. And, by the way, that person is the next and final one that I will try to talk to.
Part of the reason for writing this is because of personal experience with the city of Amsterdam. I recently found a building in the city that I thought would serve my purpose. It is vacant and the taxes are not being paid on it. When I went to the city to get the info on it, I would have been better off hitting a hornets nest with a stick. Apparently, a person from New Jersey had purchased that property and a lot more through out the city. They bent over backwards for this guy so he could/would purchase these properties. The person never paid one cent of taxes on any of these properties. I offered to purchase this property either from the city or from the actual owner.I was told that the town doesn't take property for back taxes any more. They sell the tax lien to a company from Florida. Now, that looks good on paper because the city gets some of their money. But, how does that solve the problem long term? They still have a building that looks like a dump and as far as I know, the company from Florida is not responsible for paying any other taxes on that building. I could be wrong with this assumption.
Now, I checked into the back taxes to see what was owed. One years worth of taxes was some where around $10,000.00 +/-. So I asked how that could possibly be the case. I was told that there is a usage fee for water,sewer, and trash pick up. How can there be a water, sewer, and trash pick up for a vacant building? Now, there are penalties on this number but for the sake of this thread lets say there isn't. The usage fee is $778.00 per unit. A single family building is one unit and a four family is obviously four units and so on. This building happens to be an eight unit. After going from one dept. to the next, I finally ended up back with the original person I talked to and told him what the back taxes where. Now, for starters, he should have known what was being charged because it was his job to know that. But, he said there was no way the taxes where that high on a vacant building. But they were.So I was told that if I purchased the building, they would waive the usage fee until the building was rehabilitated, but not what was owed at the present time. If that were done right from the start, maybe the person who originally purchased it would have been able to complete this project and pay the city their taxes(Not that I think this is true. I talked to the owner of the building and I personally believe that there was some shady dealings going on on his end, but you don't know and neither does the city. I think this particular person deserves what he gets.). And, because of thier own doing,the city got screwed, the mentality was that I was there to do the same.
So, back to my point.
I have lived in many areas that have metered water in every building. In Amsterdam, the only buildings, according to the city, that have water meters are commercial buildings. Why? In my experience, my personal water and sewer bills in other towns for 2 people are approx. $80.00 for three months.
Using these numbers, the tax bill for that same building would look like this.

Current tax $10,000.00
usage fee - 6224.00
----------------
actual tax $3776.00 (with no water, sewer, and trash usage fee)
trash pick up + $3664.00
if neccessary ----------------
Total tax on an occupied eight unit building
$7440.00

If the city metered the water and charged for actual use and this building had one vacancy , the property owner would have a lower water/sewer bill.
If the tenants wasted these resources, then the rent would go up and so on.
As to the garbage removal, let the property owners be responsible for taking there own rubish to the land fill. If this turns into an issue with trash laying around the city, then have the zoning dept or the police dept. issue enforcable citations and actually collect the fines. That would lower the taxes to $3776.00 and increase revenue from the slum lords in the city.This whole scenario boils down to the people of the city of Amsterdam being responsible for paying for what they actually use. The way it is now, a single person is paying the same as a four person or six person family is.
Also, In trying to investigate this eight unit building and get a game plan to rehab it, I asked the city official if there was a problem with changing the roof from a flat roof to a gable roof. The reply was, that would be very desirable do to the fact that most of the buildings in the city of this type had flat roofs with roof drains. Those roof drains are terminating into the public sewer. The city would save tremendous amounts of money if this were changed. Most other towns and cities have passed laws that make people remove sump pumps and roof drains from the public sewer system. It costs the city/town/ tax payers tremendous amounts of excess money to treat rain water. Why hasn't the city acted upon this instead of hoping that people will take it upon themselves to do. It would save thousands of tax dollars. These tax dollars could be used in other areas for improvments or in tax savings to the tax payers.
If this scenario were to be implemented, it would give property owners incentive to fix leaky faucets, replace old fixtures with new water saving units, ect. because it would save them money by reducing water consumpsion which also means lower sewer output. Also, It would lower the actual property tax burdon. If they lowered the tax burdon, probably the city would attract more investors which would speed up the revitalization of this city due to increased rehabilitation. Also, It probably would incourage businesses to want to come to the city, not the town, not the other outlying areas that share the same school district, but the actual city.
Another example I have found is a three unit building that I liked. The short story on this is as follows:
Taxes $5104.87
Usage fee - $2334.00
------------
Actual tax $2770.87 with the property owner paying for what is
actually used by that building

Public trash pick + $1374.00
up if neccessary
-------------
$4144.00
Notice the $960,00 savings in the tax. In theory, if the city is indeed charging what it costs for water and sewer, then this property would not save any money because of the water and sewer charges. But, if this property had a vacancy, the same property would save money due to not using the water. Same holds true with trash removal. If this property owner used a dumpster service, the amount of trash that is needed to be removed, all things being equal, would also go down. In my opininon, a single family home could drive to the new land fill and pay $1.50 per bag to dump and save money that way. If you invest in multi family buildings, the dumpster fees are , or should be built in anyway. It's the cost of doing business.

It has taken me this much space to explain my views on one minute subject that could save the taxpayers money. If I can figure this out, why can't city hall. I am positive that if they sharpened their pencils, started thinking outside the box so to speak, and started working on small improvements like this, They could lower taxes and still receive the money that is needed to run and improve the city.That is what they are getting paid to do. With that eight unit that I discussed, the actual plan was to rehab. the upper floor apartments for rental income. The ground floor apartments were to be changed to business space. I would have gladly invested the $239,000 into that one building, employed local people to do this project, and had my main office in the store front section of the building. Then, moved on to the next building, using the same local people. Eventually, using this same mentality, the entire city would be a beautiful place,jobs would have been available, which means local people having more money to invest in perhaps buying their own homes. But, do to the tax structure and the flat out run around I received from the city officials, I choose to run in the other direction and take my money, time, and community spirit some place else.

In conclusion, I know that I have probably left out some important information. If some of what I said here is unclear, please respond and I will try to clarify what I said. Sometimes my brain works faster than I can type and things get left out.