Sottile:  "long range solutions"

KINGSTON –Mayor James Sottile spoke of tough times ahead and sustaining a strong financial footing for the City of Kingston in 2010 during his annual address Tuesday evening at City Hall during a monthly meeting of the Common Council.

“We as a government must look at long range solutions,” said the mayor. “We must project into the future and make decisions that will be beneficial to our community in the years to come.” The first priority, he said, is maintaining a strong financial footing by controlling spending, cutting costs, investing in infrastructure, and increasing the tax base.

The city has already put a spending freeze on. “We want to be certain that as we spend money, it is money that we can afford to spend and we want to make sure that what we are spending it on is proper and definitely needed within the city.”

Sottile added that the increased scrutiny in monitoring expenditures will be accompanied by efforts to “expand or take care of the infrastructure that promotes private investment.” According to the mayor investments into the city’s infrastructure will in turn promote private investments to be made.

 “We need to pay attention to business growth and residential growth. We need to grow our tax base, not our tax rate.”

In addition to initiatives to secure the city’s financial situation, Sottile announced the Block By Block initiative which he says will bring all city department heads together to identify certain blocks within the community that tend to be “problematic” for the purpose of assessing and addressing the needs of that area. “   

Whether it be building code, heavier police presence, or the enforcement of existing codes, we really need to take a close look,” said Sottile.