Second vote to abolish Lake Placid village court March 21
LAKE PLACID — A year after this village’s board voted unanimously to abolish its remaining justice position, only to then have voters decide against it in a special referendum vote, the village is trying again.
But this time, village leaders are giving the voters the choice right from the start when the decision on whether to keep the village’s court or not will be on the ballot during the village election on March 21.
Proponents of the abolishment, such as Lake Placid Mayor Craig Randall, believe this year’s vote will more fairly represent what the people of the village want, as he anticipates a much larger turnout for next month’s regularly scheduled election compared to last June’s special election. Randall and the rest of the village board unanimously approved the placement of the referendum vote at the March 21 election.
“There’s going to be a court for four more years if this doesn’t pass in our favor,” Trustee Peter Holderied said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Voters will also decide on village mayor, two trustee positions (currently held by Art Devlin and Scott Monroe) and village justice (currently held by William Hulshoff). All the incumbents are running unopposed.
Last June, the people of Lake Placid voted not to dissolve their village court into the town of North Elba by a final vote tally of 104 to 72. Speaking Tuesday, Randall claimed that turnout represented only 11 percent of village voters. The mayor added that turnout is typically between 900 and 1,000 voters.
Last June’s special referendum vote only took place after the village court’s lone remaining justice, Hulshoff, circulated a petition to put the decision to ballot for the voters of Lake Placid. Initially in April 2016, the village board voted unanimously to abolish its remaining justice position, which would have taken effect in April 2017.
If village voters this time around decide to dissolve the court, the North Elba town court, which meets in the same room as the village court, will take village cases beginning in April, and Hulshoff’s last day will be April 3. If voters decide to keep the court, their choice for village justice will serve moving forward. The incumbent, Hulshoff, will be the only listed choice on the ballot.
Village Treasurer Paul Ellis said Tuesday that the dissolution of the court into the town court system would save taxpayers one percent on the annual tax levy. In all for the village, Ellis said $170,000 over the next four years would be saved if voters decide to dissolve the court — approximately $43,000 per year.
Randall also claimed the dissolution would create a more streamlined and efficient court system for those in the village and town, pointing to how the Essex County district attorney would only have to travel to the town hall for one schedule of court dates and how the town’s two acting justices — Hulshoff and Dean Dietrich — are also the village’s two justices. Dietrich, working for the town and village’s Community Development Commission, has been a leading proponent of consolidation of the courts.
Throughout the petition process he put together last year, Hulshoff maintained that service to the people of Lake Placid would be affected with a court consolidation as a result of an increased and volatile workload for justices.
“Personally, I find now, doing town court is very busy,” Hulshoff said in May. “I can’t imagine loading the village court load into that.”
Former Lake Placid village Justice James Moscatello also expressed last year that he felt the village court had value and the actual savings transferred to taxpayers from the proposed court consolidation would be questionable.
The structure of two town justices, two village justices, one town court clerk and one village court clerk had been in place since 1974. The justices, who generally are not lawyers, hear cases involving violations of local laws such as parking and zoning, traffic laws, misdemeanors, small claims and evictions.