When Republicans running for village office in Saranac Lake laid out their campaign platform last month, they argued that our community is "on the verge of failure." In a letter to the editor of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Harrietstown Supervisor Larry Miller echoed this claim, writing, "If the village continues down the current path it is destined for failure."
That sounds terrifying. Fortunately, this gloomy portrait of Saranac Lake is factually, provably wrong. As a journalist, I have visited, researched and written about small towns for 25 years. Compared with most of rural America - not just in the Adirondacks or upstate New York - our village is thriving.
Over the last couple of years, while the nation slid into a deep recession, our village added new businesses, from Nonna Fina and Aldi to Main Street Exchange and Borealis Color. Another new restaurant, the Asian Buffet, is slated to open this spring.
When Camp Gabriels closed last year and American Management Association cut staff, those were painful blows. But because we have a diverse economy with a strong private sector, our village bounced back. Our two largest private-sector employers - Adirondack Medical Center and Trudeau Institute - actually added jobs. So did St. Joseph's. Both of our colleges, Paul Smiths and North Country Community College, saw enrollments climb.
So why all the gloomy talk? Critics often point to the decline in public school enrollment as a symptom of Saranac Lake's stagnation. It's true that the number of kids is down, but our drop is far slower than most of the rest of rural America, which gives us time to search for solutions.
What's more, our small village now offers two excellent private school options (Northern Lights and St. Bernard's), as well as a thriving home school community. That's hardly the kind of vitality you would expect in a dying town.
Critics also point to the fact that our village population declined sharply over the last 20 years, down by nearly 11 percent. That sounds scary, but I'm convinced that a big part of the change reflects the national trend of "suburbanization," as more of our neighbors migrate to homes and developments just outside the village line.
You may be surprised to learn that since 1990, the total population in the greater Saranac Lake region (Brighton, Franklin, Harrietstown, North Elba and St. Armand) actually grew by more than 1,000 people. A lot of those folks live on McKenzie Pond Road or in Ray Brook or Vermontville, but still come to the village to work, run their businesses, go to school and shop.
Meanwhile, Saranac Lake has become a popular destination for folks looking for second homes, or a place to retire. The total value of our village's taxable real estate more than doubled over the last decade, growing by $146 million. People don't buy and build houses in towns without a future.
OK, but isn't Saranac Lake "aging" to death? Don't we have too many senior citizens and retirees, and not enough young families? Happily, the answer is no. According to the recent APRAP report, the average age in our village is 37, just two years older than the median age in New York state. That makes us one of the youngest communities in the Adirondacks.
What about the future? We want more of our kids to stay here. We want more and better private-sector jobs. Surely Saranac Lake can't compete for the kind of high-tech industries that are expected to drive prosperity in the next decade?
It turns out our village is one of the few places in rural upstate New York that has the assets to succeed in the next-generation economy. We are located in a beautiful and accessible resort area, a big draw for high-tech companies. We have affordable cell-phone and broadband Internet service, along with a highly educated work force.
Just last month, thanks to the success of the Trudeau Institute, The Scientist magazine rated our mountain village as the number-one place to live and work in the United States for postdoctoral life-science researchers. They praised the community's "low cost of living, and lifestyle" and our "idyllic location."
Not bad for a town teetering on the edge of a disaster.
All this isn't to say that Saranac Lake doesn't face real challenges. Every small town does. But the naysayers also tend to overlook the hard work already under way to solve our biggest problems. One example is the effort to replace Ames. Since the popular department store closed, local merchants have expanded their offerings dramatically, providing similar goods at competitive prices.
Is there better shopping in big cities? Sure. But when you compare the variety, quality and affordability of our stores with the vast majority of small towns in the North Country, we're doing great.
Obviously, some people still want a Walmart or a comparable national chain. That's a fair debate to have, along with a serious discussion over the merits of a retail size cap. But while those conversations are going on, a group of locals has launched an ambitious effort to open a new community department store.
These aren't hippies forming a nonprofit collective. These are investors and experienced business people building a tax-paying, jobs-providing company that will compete on equal terms with every other store in town. They have already raised nearly half a million dollars of capital, not bad for a village that's about to fail.
Which brings me to the biggest hurdle that we face: negativity. Put simply, the rest of America expects small towns like ours to wither and die. When investors and entrepreneurs hear locals - especially elected officials - talking gloom and doom, they are likely to believe it. They will take their money and their families and their jobs and go elsewhere.
Fortunately, the facts show that Saranac Lake is working from a position of strength and success. That's something we all - Republicans and Democrats, newcomers and old-timers alike - should celebrate and build on together.
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Brian Mann lives in Saranac Lake and works as a journalist for North Country Public Radio. His wife, Susan Waters, is running for re-election as a village trustee on the Democratic Party line.