TUPPER LAKE — One candidate is running uncontested for Tupper Lake village mayor.

Mary Fontana is running on the Republican and independent Integrity party lines. The incumbent, Paul Maroun, is not seeking reelection.

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise sent a questionnaire to Fontana. Below are her responses.

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Mary Fontana

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Age: 34

Position sought: Village mayor, Tupper Lake

Q: Why are you running for this position?

A: I believe that citizens have a responsibility to themselves and their neighbors to dedicate a portion of their time and attention to their community.

Tupper Lake is a beautiful place to live. It is inhabited by generous people and wonderful families. We are all aware of issues that need attention, and I hope to address them with a positive attitude and energy. Past leadership is not to be criticized, but I believe our village government is ready for a fresh perspective.

Q: What are your qualifications?

A: I have served this community as a town councilwoman for nearly eight years. That experience has rewarded me with opportunities to work with a wide range of personalities and given me an inside look at the workings of governance. To say I have been successful in all ventures would be wildly inaccurate, but each obstacle was considered objectively and optimistically. Using the resources available to the Town allowed me to make educated decisions that preserved our financial future while planning and improving our assets and our ability to grow economically.

Q: What are your main goals?

A: I believe we have an opportunity to improve communication amongst ourselves in government and with our constituents. The intricacies and minutia of municipal administration are cumbersome. The community is often unaware of the hard work that staff and elected officials are doing to address and remedy local issues and projects. Board meetings occur monthly and have historically not been well attended, I believe we can find new ways of communicating with our constituents to share progress and encourage public participation.

Tupper Lake is rich in resources allowing us the opportunity to offer a collection of essential services. With two working governing bodies we should look to align our focuses and allocation of services and resources to better serve our community, avoid duplicating services and save taxpayer dollars. My years on the town board have afforded me opportunities to build rapport with other local representatives and discover new paths to common ground(s). Working together we can build up our community and shift the focus from what sets us apart, and instead, focus on what we can accomplish in tandem.

Reliability and consistency are foundational objectives. Our residents expect transparency and trust their representatives to budget conservatively while planning for the financial future of the community. Being held accountable for tax dollars is not a burden, but rather a responsibility we can capitalize on by making conservative choices, while keeping the goal post for development and community connection moving forward. Boards tend to adapt, and creating forward momentum fuels the ability of future boards to be successful. Our tax base deserves our commitment to respect their financial interests, our truthfulness about the obstacles we face, and transparency about how we plan to overcome them.

Q: What do you think are the three biggest problems in the town, and how do you propose solving them?

A: The top issue facing this community is the quality of our drinking water. Public concern and outrage have been fueled by issue number two — a lack of communication and information sharing. We need to establish a sound financial future for this community where we balance the responsibility to provide service with the growing need to develop and improve our assets and infrastructure.

While no defensive of the village is welcomed in today’s political climate, I can attest that regular meetings are held, and action has been taken to remedy the water quality issue we are facing. Plans are underway to change the source of the water which should allow the village to move from the wells to open-sourced water with a new filtration system. Unfortunately, this is a long process that requires many levels of design, permitting and approval before work can commence. Adding to this process are the financial implications of redesigning our supply system, the filtration plant, and the distribution system(s).

We need to explore how to better communicate with the public. While traditional media continues to be a relevant and reliable vehicle to share information, a large portion of our population relies on alternative or supplement methods of communication. We have a responsibility to let our constituents know what we are doing to address their concerns. Action without information is an invitation for that action to not fulfill its objective. I’m hopeful that under my leadership we can better disseminate our objectives and respond to our community’s appeal for action.

As I’ve mentioned in other responses here, being accountable for the financial future of the municipality is an immense responsibility. When I look at the level of services offered to Village residents coupled with the development opportunities on the horizon it puts much into perspective. We have a limited tax base, an ever-increasing cost of services, and a requirement to preserve those services while balancing a budget and attempting to avoid exhausting our taxpayers.

Q: Other comments to voters?

A: It has been a pleasure to serve this community for the better part of a decade. I am humbled to have your support in my efforts to continue in that service.