Village board Trustee Ron LaScala, second from right, talks with the board about his visit to the town board earlier in the month. Also pictured are Trustee “Haji” Maroun, left, and Mayor Paul Maroun, center. Trustee Leon LeBlanc is pictured at far right. High school students from Linda Sexton’s government class were also present. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

TUPPER LAKE — Village board Trustee Ron LaScala talked with the board at Wednesday’s meeting about his appearance at a town board meeting earlier this month, further discussing his plans for town and village consolidation.

LaScala thanked fellow Trustees Clint Hollingsworth and David “Haji” Maroun for their support and said he wants to continue the conversation with the town. He warned the board that combining the governments might not be easy or popular but that he truly believes it is the right thing to do for the people he represents.

“I think this is what I was supposed to do here,” LaScala said. “I think this is why I was elected; to take on these hard things like this.”

LaScala attended a town board meeting earlier in December to ask them to commission a study of the possibility of having Tupper Lake be a coterminous government. The town board, though interested by the idea of consolidating the two layers of government, agreed that they believe the village should commission the study.

LaScala has been pushing for the village to expand to the size of the town boundaries under Article 17 of New York village law, which would essentially put all residents of the current town and village under one consistent tax, with all services provided by one governing body.

While there have been attempts to dissolve the village in the past, essentially producing the same general outcome, they have never gotten far as dissolution is messy and can have negative results.

LaScala said that while dissolution can wreak havoc on school districts and their tax levies, Article 17 leaves them alone.

LaScala thinks the decision can be made without a study, so since the town board wants to study it he is asking the town to cover it.

“I understand that they want to do a study, and this is why I want them to get involved, instead of waiting until I leave the building to start talking about it.”

LaScala indicated that he was not very happy with the meeting he had with the town board.

“I went there to have a nice conversation, and I was not very welcome,” LaScala said. “Giving any community leader a time limit to address another body of government, to me, is just disrespectful and unfortunate.”

LaScala also took issue with Councilman John Quinn’s comment that he appreciated LaScala coming and talking to the board, rather than them reading about his thoughts on Facebook or in newspaper articles on village board meetings.

LaScala said he communicates with his constituents through Facebook, reaching nearly all of them through social media, adding that if anyone from the town wants to talk with him one-on-one, his contact information is available.

“I drive around a big red truck with my phone number on the side of it,” LaScala said.

LaScala brought a “six pillars of character” poster from school to the village board meeting because he knew high school students from Linda Sexton’s government class would be there.

“This is what character is about; it’s about doing the right thing,” LaScala said. “Sometimes people think that I’m not being very respectful or kind. But sometimes you have to burn bridges to build new ones that are built on a foundation of terms that you agreed to, not that are dictated to you.”

LaScala said he has talked with Carrie Tuttle from the Development Authority of the North Country since his meeting to get more information on consolidating, and said she said a study might take around two years.

“We’ll follow up too; we’ll get the Secretary of State’s office, which has some more material on it,” village Mayor Paul Maroun said. “It is legally complicated and it is citizen(-wise) complicated.”

Trustee Leon LeBlanc, who has seen several other studies done on consolidating the town and village, suggested that after the holidays the village board invite the town board to sit down and discuss the future of the two governments.