(Credit: Steve Thurston, 2022)
Residents gathered with village officials and others for a public hearing about the vote to dissolve the Lake George Village government.
Not many sparks flew at the first of three public hearings that the village and town of Lake George are holding before next Tuesday’s referendum. On Tuesday, voters of Lake George Village will be asked one simple question: “Shall the Incorporated Village of Lake George be dissolved?”
About 30 people went to the public hearing and some spoke to town and village leaders after an hour-long presentation by the Laberge Group, the company tasked with writing the “Interim Dissolution Report” for the municipalities. Those who spoke had questions about process and funding but they showed little emotion.
[See our coverage of the initial dissolution report presentation here. Full disclosure: Reporter Steve Thurston had to leave the meeting about 20 minutes after the public comment portion started.]
If the voters say “No,” then the village may still pursue other avenues to consolidate with the town but a referendum cannot be held for at least four years. If the voters say “Yes,” the Village will have 180 days to develop a full plan for dissolution.
Two elected officials, Town of Lake George Board member Marisa Muratori and Village Trustee Raymond Perry both said they would vote “no,” meaning that they do not want to see the village dissolve into the town.
Muratori said the amount of work that would be required to dissolve was too great, and the town has too many projects to focus on now. Incorporating the village would be too much, she said.
“I don’t see that I, as a village voter, am going to vote for this,” she said. She is a village resident. She said she did not see how the dissolution would make the two municipalities more efficient.
“I don’t see a crisis here,” she said.
Perry said that the report from the Laberge Group had too many words such as “estimated,” “approximately” and “nearly,” which gave him pause. He said he thought the report was well written but he was uneasy with the variables.
One variable that village and town leaders have been repeating is that two elections, one in the village and one in town, are taking place in the 18 months, or so, after the plan is created but before the village is dissolved. Plans and promises could change if the boards change.
(Laberge Group Vice President Ben Syden said a good date for complete dissolution would be Dec. 31, 2024.)
Village Mayor Bob Blais, who is staunchly against dissolution, warned that he believes no one would run for the village board if they knew they were only going to be on the board for a short period before the village dissolved.
Not everyone is against dissolution.
Doug Frost who led the petition effort to bring the referendum says in a Chronicle story that the village is fully built-out and pressure to maintain services will force taxes to rise in the long term. Joining the town would give all of the residents a geographically larger tax base.
[See the Chronicle story, especially, p. 7]
At the same time, the village passed a resolution that will force them to spend down reserves to lower the village real estate taxes, if the village does not dissolve. Mayor Blais explained to some who wondered how this reserve money suddenly became available, that it was only after completing the latest budget that they realized construction costs for the village's new wastewater treatment plant were lower than expected and receipts from the increase in parking meter fees were higher than expected.
The first hearing was held at 2 p.m. Thursday Sept. 7 at the Town of Lake George meeting room. The second was Tuesday evening. The third is scheduled for Monday at the Lake George High School auditorium.
[See our calendar of events for more.]
Coverage elsewhere: