From left, Saranac Lake mayor candidates Jimmy Williams, Jeremy Evans and Melinda Little speak at a candidate forum held on Wednesday at the Hotel Saranac. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

SARANAC LAKE — At a mayoral candidate forum Wednesday night, village residents got to hear more from the three people running for Saranac Lake’s mayor seat in the March 15 election.

The three candidates for mayor in this coming Tuesday’s election — Melinda Little, Jeremy Evans and Jimmy Williams — met at the Hotel Saranac before a crowd of around 60 people to take questions from moderators and the public.

The full two-hour forum — co-hosted by the High Peaks DSA, Tri-Lakes Neighbors for Good Gov’t and Adirondack Independent News — can be watched at https://bit.ly/3J2jRsR.

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Experience

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Williams was asked about the gap between his governmental experience and Evans’ and Little’s. He said he sees that as an advantage, having fresh eyes on old issues. He said the mayor’s job is to “orchestrate,” to find experts, hold them accountable and set the course for a good culture for them to work in.

Williams focused on his goal of “repairing relationships.” One area where he said this would help was in filling vacant homes and storefronts.

“We need to revamp the code and development office,” he said. “We’re not cooperating with property owners. … Typically, relationships don’t get better, they get worse, with exposure to those two offices,” Williams said. “Which results in people who don’t want to make improvements.”

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Past administration

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Little was asked how she’s stood up for community members who feel antagonized or attacked by Mayor Clyde Rabideau.

Little said she’s questioned his attitude towards citizens from the beginning. She said he has “admirable” qualities, but she’s distanced herself from him.

“He does come across very aggressively, and in particular with women, can sound very much like he’s putting them down,” she said. “I don’t have any control over that. What I have control over is my own behavior. I’m the one running this time and my leadership style is very different.”

There are things that have frustrated her as a trustee, Little said. When she brought up the idea of the village having more work meetings as a way to be more transparent, the idea was “shut down.”

Little said under her leadership, there would be no more “pissing matches” or “decisions made behind closed doors” in the village.

“Unethical behavior has been a trend for a number of years,” Williams said.

He said changing that starts with leadership.

“Anyone who doesn’t do the right thing … has to go,” he said, adding that they need to be replaced with someone with good intentions.

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Transparency

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Little said she’d like to add work meetings to the village schedule to keep the public informed on upcoming decisions, invite department heads to speak at meetings, expand public comment and possibly add a question-and-answer segment. She said the budget is dense and complicated. She said it should be simplified so the public can better read and understand where their money is going.

“We can make the budget easier to read tomorrow,” Evans said.

Evans pitched himself as a person with a wealth of knowledge and the ability to use it.

“When I attend a village meeting, the village board and staff sit up a little straighter because they know when I’m there and I say something, there’s truth behind it,” Evans said. “They know what I know, and that fact drives them crazy.”

Evans said village employees and officials come to him for advice, help and information, and he doesn’t hoard information. He said he’s working for the betterment of the community.

He said when he criticized the village for not posting enough financial data in a debate hosted by the Enterprise and Saranac Lake Area Chamber of Commerce earlier this month, the next day, the village posted three years of annual update audits on its website.

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Filling vacant spaces

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Two of the big issues asked about at the forum were vacant homes and vacant storefronts. Each candidate had a different way they said they would handle this.

Williams said that the village needs to patch up bruised relationships with property and business owners to incentivize them to improve their structures. He said bad relationships have held up progress in the past.

Little said she wants to hire a new person for the code office, a new face, and someone to work with individual property owners one at a time, turning “problem properties” into productive ones.

Evans said the village needs to change the way its building and development code is interpreted. He was part of the group which wrote the code years ago and said he’s disappointed in the way it’s being used. The interpretation of the new development code makes it “far too difficult” to get into a storefront, he said, adding that the village is losing businesses because of the complexity and costs related.

Williams said there’s a personnel issue in the village code and development offices. He said potential business owners, developers and renovators have been scared off by souring relationships with village officials.

Williams asked if he could ask Little a question. He asked how many times she’s heard someone complain in a board meeting or personal conversation about someone in the code or development offices.

An attendee at the forum took issue with this, questioning if it was a viable question.

“I’ve been in front of the village board to talk about some of these matters and nobody did anything,” Williams said.

He later apologized if this question was too aggressive.

Little agreed that the viability of the question was dubious, but said there are communication issues in the code and development offices.

“I think a lot of people are going into projects without fully understanding what they’re getting into, and that’s not being communicated as well as it should be up front,” she said.

She would like to create a “cheat sheet” for people to know what to expect when they get started.

Evans said, as the head of the code and development office for nine years, he was asked about this issue countless times. He said he’s been that liaison between property owners and the code officer that Williams and Little were suggesting.

Evans said all municipalities, including Saranac Lake, have inadequate resources for their code offices for the high workload they’re saddled with. But he said that’s no excuse for individual behavior.

Evans said he’d like to fix the “underlying problems” in the department before adding more staff.

Williams said repairing relationships is key to filling storefronts.

“Our options are to work with people and find a solution … or just leave it as it is,” Williams said. “Unless we want that place empty, we have to talk.”

Little said there are opportunities to work with property owners one-on-one. She said village Development Code Administrator Paul Blaine has recently made progress with a problem property, working with an owner to convince them to renovate and sell the property.

Evans was asked what positive changes he’s made for vacant storefronts in the years he’s worked on the issue, seeing as it still is a problem.

He said community development is “rewarding” and “frustrating.” There are constant setbacks, he said.

He said despite the continuing issues, he’s proud of Saranac Lake’s downtown. It’s not just a “ghost town” and it’s doing better than others.

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Police and fire reserve fund

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Candidates were asked about the special village meeting they all attended on Monday about, among other things, creating a $2.5 million reserve fund for fire and police department capital projects. This resolution was tabled after public opposition to a decision being made without much prior notice.

Evans believes it was inexcusable to vote to allocate that much money, practically “overnight.” He believes the money is only being allocated because he raised the issue at the Enterprise-Chamber forum. Evans said the money was set aside for public safety buildings, but the public was never told.

“It’s as if we can’t be trusted,” he said.

Williams said business should not be done “on Facebook or in a vacuum.”

He said he’d like to approve this reserve fund eventually, if it makes sense.

Little said she made the motion to table the reserve fund vote because it would be better to include it in the budgeting process, to give more time for public comment.

Evans lamented that village budgets come “95% baked” before the public and board see them. Village staff create most of the budget before public discussions, so few changes are ever made.

Little invited the public to Thursday’s meeting.

“If you enter at the beginning of the conversation, then you get to have some say-so about some stuff,” she said.

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Other issues

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Candidates also discussed issues of water quality, an issue which has been addressed in guest commentaries in the Enterprise written by Dan Reilly, and responded to by the mayor.

They debated if tests show the water is hazardous or fine. All three agreed to share water test results with the public like the Saranac Lake Central School District does, but with privacy to focus on neighborhoods rather than addresses.

They also discussed the police department, saying they want to keep a local police because of the services it provides. But Williams and Little also said they’d want to look at ways to cut costs without impacting the quality of services. Williams said 29% of the village budget being police department costs seems very high.

Candidates also discussed the village manager position, what they want to do for Saranac Lake families, short-term rental regulation and electrical licensing.

On the ballot this coming Tuesday, Evans will be running on the Stronger SL party line, and Little will be running on the Democratic and Common Sense party lines. Williams will be running on the Republican and Independent SL party lines.

Voters can cast ballots at the Harrietstown Town Hall from noon to 9 p.m.