The Enterprise has been unable to determine if Williams is running for reelection on any other party lines. He is registered as an independent voter.

At the caucus, Brunette gathered 152 votes and Williams gathered 63.

Brunette said she wants a village that is willing to “bend a bit,” to be open-minded and give each other the benefit of the doubt. She said the decisions they make will impact the village for decades.

“The way we govern matters just as much as the decisions we make,” Brunette said.

Kelly Brunette (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

She said she’d treat taxpayer money as if it were her own, and “match ambition with reality.”

Brunette pledged “no intimidation,” “no quiet shortcuts” and “no surprise decisions.”

“Residents should never be the last to know,” she said.

To read more about Brunette’s candidacy, go to tinyurl.com/3d6dr8up.

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Jimmy Williams (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Williams

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Williams said the last four years have been a “growing experience” for him. He said he learned he needs to improve communication. At the caucus, he said he wanted to communicate about the village’s progress.

The public safety building project is a “hot topic.”

“No matter what happens with this project, we will wait for funding,” Williams said. “We will not break the tax cap to complete this project.”

He said the village budget has never broken the tax cap.

Williams said, in 2021, the village earned $413 in interest from the money it has saved in investments. The village repositioned its investments and he said they have now brought in $2.2 million over the past three years.

The village annexed Willow Way, which he said added $2.7 million to the tax rolls.

He said the village brought its staffing level at the Department of Public Works from half when he started to full now. The DPW does projects in-house now, which helps save on construction costs, he said.

Williams said the police department is also fully staffed for the first time in a while, with grants for new equipment and training.

He touted the short-term vacation rental law the village passed in 2023, which, after much debate, capped the number of STRs allowed in the village and only allows village residents to get permits in the future.

Williams said the code enforcement officers have brought 40 vacant properties back into the housing inventory, and that they’ve done 100 multi-family home inspections since he took office, when in the previous five years, they had done none.

The village handed a zombie property to the Franklin County Land Bank to renovate into a home, which Williams said he hopes to do more of.

Williams said village staff have worked “tirelessly” to keep the Saranac Lofts apartment complex project alive.

He said the village has helped Pendragon Theatre get grants, helped the 89-home-and-apartment Trudeau Village get a $1.3 million grant, got money for the village-run Mount Pisgah ski area to install a new snowmaking pipe, supported public art projects and got a grant for the fire department to get a new ladder truck.

Williams said the community development office is “on fire,” getting $2.1 million in grants in the past two years.

Usually, he said, water and sewer rates go up by double digits every year. In the past four years, these rates have been flat.