Their cars clog village streets, they drink the water, flush the toilets, use the parks and spew litter everywhere they go.

But there is no easy equation to translate those impacts into dollars and cents.

It turns out it is almost as difficult to quantify all the costs of tourism as it has been to find a way other than property taxes to pay for them.

Some costs related to tourism are easy to pinpoint and understand. For instance, the garbage collected by the DPW during the Hall of Fame’s Induction Weekend or the extra hours clocked by the police department. But that’s just a small piece of the puzzle.

Village Treasurer Mary Ann Henderson said last week the direct costs to the village for this year’s Baseball Hall of Fame Induction weekend will be about $25,000 or approximately $12 for every village resident.

Henderson said the costs were primarily overtime labor for DPW employees and the village police. There are also the tipping fees for garbage hauled to Oneonta, the rental of port-jons, lumber and miscellaneous items.

``The direct costs are not that high,’’ said village trustee Jeff Katz.

The other, indirect costs, are not that easy to put a number on, but they are just as real, just as legitimate, despite not being easily quantifiable, Katz said.

``You have to think about the hidden expenses you don’t see,’’ said Mayor Waller.

One way to begin to understand the cost of tourism is to look at where some of the $5.1 million in the village budget goes _ spending which might not be necessary if it were not for all the visitors to the village each year.

The police department costs village taxpayers more than $360,000 in the current budget _ an amount just less than 25 percent of the tax levy. The police do generate some revenue through parking tickets, but how many other upstate villages of 2,000 residents have a police budget so large?

Without tourism, there would be a lot less personnel in many of the village’s departments, Henderson said.

Another example is the trolley system, which predominately shuttles visitors from remote lots at the edge of the village to the downtown area. If those visitors did not arrive, there would be no need for the trolley.

The trolleys, Henderson said, are not supported through taxes, but it is still village owned property and still village controlled.

Brian Clancy, the village’s DPW Superintendent, said the water plant is a good example of the cost of tourism.

In December 1995, the village put a new water filtration system online and everything seemed great until six months later, when the Cooperstown Dreams Park opened.

``Suddenly, we get extra people in the village and we’re behind the eight ball with filtration,’’ Clancy said.

In order to keep up with increasing demand for more water during the summer tourist season, the village has twice undergone electrical upgrades at the plant to make it possible to operate more and larger pumps to filter more water.

``We built it and it wasn’t big enough for what came down the road six months later,’’ Clancy said.

Another cost looming on the horizon is the village wastewater treatment plant. The facility was built in the 1960s and has already outlived its life expectancy. So far, it is still getting the job done, but when the day comes that it has to be replaced will its capacity be matched to a village of 2,000 people or will it take into account the sharp increase in water usage that comes each summer with the tourists?

Water and sewer costs are paid for by the village residents who are ratepayers and those who use more pay more. Capital improvements, including a new, larger treatment plant, are also figured into the rates paid by users.

Also on the horizon is the Village Gateway Project to construct a visitor center and parking lot in the Linden Avenue extension area with state and federal funds. The design is on the drawing board and is currently being refined. What has yet to be determined is who will pay for the operations and maintenance of the facility.

Additionally, there is the general wear and tear to the infrastructure. It may be tough to determine how much one Dreams Park family’s SUV adds to that wear and tear on village streets, but multiply it by tens of thousands of vehicles and it does begin to make a difference.

Katz says that currently much of the cost of tourism is paid for through property taxes. One way to generate revenue to offset some of those costs of tourism is sales tax. The dispersal of sales tax revenue is controlled by a formula worked out years ago by the county. It dictates the county receives 75 percent, the city of Oneonta gets 12.5 percent and the remaining 12.5 percent is split between all the other towns and villages in the county. Village officials continue to try and convince the county board of representatives that Cooperstown deserves a larger share of the sales tax revenue. Cooperstown is the magnet that draws many of the tourists to the county, so it should also receive additional help in paying for the impact of those visitors, they say.

Mayor Waller made another appeal to the county board only days after the Hall of Fame Induction crowd had headed home.

She said she told the county board that they will probably receive as much as $1 million in sales and bed tax revenue for the weekend.

``The village didn’t make any money,’’ she said.

To date, those efforts have been largely unsuccessful, but Katz said he thinks that could change.

``I saw real cooperation between the village and the county during the Induction and I hope to build on that in the future,’’ he said.

Instead of going to the county, a different way to capture more sales and bed tax revenue would be for Cooperstown to become a city. That change would allow it to collect taxes on its own. Katz, who chairs the village planning committee, said he has done the political research covering the mechanics of the switch, but has not completed the financial research. Initial indications are that revenue from sales and bed tax generated in the village would be substantial. Even if it turns out to make sense financially, it is a lengthy process and the outcome, which requires an act of the legislature, is somewhat uncertain, he said.

But there is another, more immediate way to produce additional village revenue and that is through paid parking, Katz said.

``Meters in the business district could raise revenue quickly,’’ he said.

The village can continue to investigate becoming a city and negotiate with the county, but in the meantime, paid parking may provide needed extra revenue, Katz said.

Establishing paid parking for approximately 200 spaces on Main and Pioneer Streets requires no one’s cooperation or permission and would be relatively simple. Katz said it may be possible to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

``Let’s take care of the things we can. Let’s control our own destiny,’’ he said.