Incumbent Saratoga Springs Supervisor Tara Gaston calls herself a “loud” and “stubborn” voice on the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors. Already on the ballot for November as a Democrat, she is running in a separate primary campaign against two other candidates to become the Working Families Party nominee as well.
Early voting has started in that campaign and the in-person voting is next Tuesday June 22.
“I have a giant notebook [of agenda items] that I’m working my way through,” Gaston said in an interview today.
She said that transparency in government and, with that, better technology at the county level are still two of her top priorities. If there is a silver lining to the pandemic it is that the needs and issues have become clear, and the county has started to work, she said.
In her next term, she said she will work toward bringing the county code and laws more to the foreground on the website and elsewhere. Although the county has some of the best taxes for business in the state, doing business is not always easy and the rules and regulations are not always transparent.
She said, “Government has the responsibility to protect the health and welfare of the citizens.” She does not believe the county should hand this off to another entity.
For Saratoga Springs, she hopes to pull mental health services that have moved out of the city back to it. Some services have been sent out-of-county, which she called “ridiculous” given the level of money and talent available here.
She also would like to see a change in the occupancy tax law--a change required at the state level. When actor Owen Wilson was in town to shoot the movie “Paint,” recently, cast and crew rented 35 local houses, and none had to pay occupancy tax to the county. If they stayed at hotels or motels, they would have.
“We need to fix that,” she said.
A state law prohibits the occupancy tax to extend to small businesses of four units or fewer--that is, houses in Saratoga Springs. She would like to see that changed, as is happening in places such as Warren County.
“I definitely don’t want to make it more difficult for the owner to pay their mortgage,” Gaston said, adding that she believes the cost would be passed onto the renter.
The occupancy tax in Saratoga County, according to the ecode website that houses the county’s laws is 1%; whereas Warren County is 4%. The money in the “occ tax” goes to Saratoga Springs generally, the city center, the Saratoga Prosperity Partnership and other economic activity.
Even if the law can be extended to homes and small buildings, she said of the taxes, “I think we can still be on the low end.”
Along those lines, she believes the city should look to change the City Center from a quasi-government building to a private one in order to have access to grants and funds not currently available.
Mostly, she hopes to continue asking pointed questions and challenging the status quo.
“I’m kind of a loud voice,” she said. It is terrible, she said, when people say, “We’ve always done it this way.”
Editor's note: Gaston is running against Bruce Altimar and Gabriel O’Brien.
The candidate form for the county does not list a phone number for Bruce Altimar, and Verizon Wireless 411 Search had no listing. A listing found on the internet was for an out-of-service number. Gabriel O’Brien’s phone number is listed on county campaign documents. When called, he said, “No comment at this time, thank you” and hung up. We could not find a candidate website, Facebook page or similar for Alitmar or O’Brien.