SARANAC LAKE — There will be three candidates on the ballot running for a seat on the village board in Tuesday’s election, but only two of them will be elected.

Kelly Brunette, a current trustee who was elected last year to finish an unexpired term last March, is running on the Democratic and independent Stronger SL party lines.

Matt Scollin, a spokesman for Adirondack Health who is involved in numerous community groups, including the Saranac Lake Irish/Gaelic Organization is running on the independent Stronger SL party line.

Susan Waters, a former trustee running largely on the housing issue, is running on the Democratic and independent Common Sense party lines.

Polls at the Harrietstown Town Hall open March 15, Tuesday, at noon and close at 9 p.m.

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Scollin

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Scollin says his goal is to lead his hometown into the future, giving the village every opportunity to improve and grow. He was asked by Brunette to run for office alongside her. Brunette said they’ve worked together on several committees and she always thought he put a lot of thought and effort into his work on them.

Scollin said he was agreed to run for office, in part, because he remembers watching his father, Ray Scollin, serve on the village board as he was growing up.

“Growing up as a kid, community service was instilled in me and my siblings,” Scollin said. “It was part of our lives. It was just a given that if you have something that you can contribute, you should.”

Scollin said Saranac Lake is at a “crossroads.” Big things are coming and he thinks he can be helpful.

He said the lack of workforce housing in a tourism-driven economy presents problems. He’s also looking forward to overseeing the implementation of Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant projects and the village’s new police chief, who started earlier this month.

Scollin said he always read the paper — it was one of the first things his dad would give him to read as a child — and said he’s seen “room for improvement” on the village board.

“That’s not a criticism, but it’d be crazy to say things are as good as they can be,” he said.

Scollin’s always been busy. He has been a member of the Common Ground Alliance’s core team; a founding member of SLIGO; a representative for Adirondack Health on the DRI’s project advisory committee, curating which projects got state funding; on the state Association for Rural Health committee; on the educational council at St. Bernard’s School, where his son attends; on the Saranac Lake Golf Club Board of Governors; the vice-chair of the Saranac Lake Local Development Corporation; on the Winter Carnival committee occasionally; on the Regional Office Of Sustainable Tourism’s saranaclake.com redesign committee; the village’s “Decidedly Different” branding committee and the Franklin County Tourism Advisory Committee, where he worked with Brunette.

He said despite all his obligations, he wouldn’t take the trustee job unless he believes he could put in the time necessary to do it well.

“It’s not super easy all the time, but it’s time management. It’s getting up earlier and going to bed later,” he said.

Scollin said he wants to give younger people a reason to stay here. He said things like the Saranac Lake Skateboard Park attract young people from all over the North Country and can be a draw for young people to move or stay in town.

Scollin said board members have access to lots of information, and while he’d be excited to get the chance to look at it himself, he also wants to share more of it with the general population.

Scollin says housing is “a huge issue.”

He wants to make sure Saranac Lake gets its share of state money available for housing improvements.

Scollin said regulating STRs are a piece the puzzle, but not all of it. He acknowledged that there are many different stakeholders in this issue.

“I know it’s been a little bit contentious at times,” he said.

He’d like the conversation to be “calm and level headed.”

“One of my primary roles at the hospital is to take complex subjects and clinical, down-in-the-weeds information, and repackage it in a way that the regular person on the street can understand,” Scollin said.

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Waters

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Waters, who announced her candidacy at the Saranac Lake Democratic Caucus in January said the housing crisis is what compelled her to run for office again. Her sudden decision to run for her former seat on the day of the caucus was because she believes she is “uniquely qualified” to handle this issue.

She said she has 25 years of experience as a housing advocate and more in government and corporate management.

“If we’re serious, we need to commit resources in the form of a housing advisory board and a line item in our budget,” Waters wrote in an email to the Enterprise.

Waters served on the village board from 2006 to 2010 before losing reelection. When she was on the board before, she worked on a housing survey. Housing was an issue over a decade ago, too.

“While I was working on the Saranac Lake Housing Plan, the real estate frenzy displaced friends, and five houses on my block sold at astonishing prices,” Waters wrote.

Waters said there is a “bright spot.”

“There’s huge political will around housing right now, which will hopefully lead to long-overdue action,” she wrote.

She said activating vacant units is a “priority,” and listed several tools to achieve this end — deed restrictions, accessory dwelling units, co-housing, impact investing, zoning changes, reclaiming “zombie” homes, tax incentives and a variation on the deed restrictions that the Adirondack Community Housing Trust uses. This last one is a new tool that didn’t exist when she as on the board before.

Waters would like the village to permit STRs through regulation, with preferential treatment for owner-occupied units.

Waters said the village can indirectly lead on filling vacant storefronts by investing in its parks, housing, sidewalks and culture.

“Quality of life in a community attracts development,” she wrote, adding that the village’s other job is to “(work) with landlords to make their spaces desirable.”

Waters would like to revisit a survey of community-defined business needs and do some “matchmaking” between entrepreneurs and landlords.

She said her time on the village’s Destination Tourism Study committee convinced her that tourism marketing is “vital.”

Last week, the village delayed a vote on creating a $2.5 million reserve fund for fire and police department capital projects, using funds from a large fund balance.

Waters said she supports earmarking some of this money for an emergency services building.

She said the village’s $5 million fund “seems excessive UNLESS it’s committed to a project.”

She’d like the village to keep around $2 million in its fund balance.

Waters said she wants to make sure taxes support services the community needs, but aren’t too high.

“Everyone loves services; no one likes to pay for them,” Waters wrote. “I support a lean budget that addresses our priorities, prepares for modest contingencies and plans for the future through a capital investment schedule.”

She said taxes on cannabis sales and higher assessments on property sales could bring in more revenue.

Waters said she’s looking forward to moving past the political rhetoric that’s plagued the village board and getting “down to the business of solving problems.”

“I’m all for respectful dialog, but the meetings are time constrained so we need to create additional channels in both directions,” Waters wrote.

She likes mayoral candidate Melinda Little’s idea of having department reports at public meetings and said she believes most things can be resolved when you can look someone in the eye.

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Brunette

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Brunette said one year on the board was “not enough time.”

She feels she’s no longer a “newbie” to the board and wants to work with new members with fresh eyes to tackle new problems.

Brunette said there’s no quick solution to housing but that the village needs to seriously work on solutions for both renters and homeowners who are looking for properties that aren’t there right now.

“A community starts with having housing,” she said.

Brunette said everyone seems to want swift action on STR regulation, but such regulation needs to be well thought out. She said with 4% of the village’s homes being vacation rentals, the village has time to work a solution out, but it needs to keep working.

It’s a balance to not spend too much time planning and to not take action too soon, she said.

Brunette herself has a two-unit apartment building she’s kept as long-term rentals, even though converting them into STRs would be easier and more financially lucrative.

Brunette said the village’s development and zoning code do not currently align with what its members want Saranac Lake to be.

An example, she said, was Dack Bikes, a bike share company owned by Callie Shelton, which the village code office required to get site plans and Development Board approval to install bike racks after they installed a rack at a hotel. She said the village prides itself on being a bikeable community but hindered this business from starting up.

She said the village needs to be more business friendly, and as a trustee, has received complaints about this. But she said administering code is a hard job. There are limitations from the state, but she said that’s no excuse to not be more helpful.

She said the village should be open about what it takes to open a business.

Last week, Brunette voted to table a vote on creating a $2.5 million reserve fund for fire and police department capital projects.

Brunette said $5 million is well past a healthy fund balance and if the village had been audited, it could have been a problem.

She said it makes sense to put this money in a reserve and not let it sit around.

In the future, she’d like to put accrued fund balance into fixing up streets and sidewalks. She said it is important to plan for these fund balance uses and communicate those plans.

None of this reserve fund plan was communicated to her, she said, and she didn’t know how much money was going to be allocated or what it was going to be used for until the meeting.

Brunette said in her time on the board, the village has been great at staying below the state’s tax levy cap and she wants to keep that up. With this large fund balance, she said it’s obvious the village can. So she wants to focus on giving villagers new tangible services from their taxes.

Residents are asking for things like spring yard clipping pickup and monthly village street sweeping, or fundraising for things like new basketball hoops in public parks.

She wants the village to commit to stabilizing its metered water and sewer rates. She also wants to provide fun community programming in parks in the summer — showing movies or putting on performances for children.

Brunette said the village asks a lot of its residents as volunteers, and wants to give them some things to help them out in return.

“I don’t think there is any reason for the village to put taxpayer dollars towards tourism marketing,” Brunette said. “This is a ‘no-brainer’ for me.”

She said the village sits inside Essex and Franklin counties, with both collect an occupancy tax on hotel and vacation rental stays which goes toward tourism marketing. She said this means the village taxpayers shouldn’t need to contribute.