The candidates often shared similar goals for the village, but pitched different ideas on achieving them.

Evans, who is currently a town councilman, is on the Democratic line as well as the independent “Affordability Civility and Transparency (ACT)” party line.

Stiles, who volunteers on several village boards, is running on the Republican line. Her bid for an independent line was unsuccessful. She’s sharing a platform with mayoral candidate Jimmy Williams.

Trudeau, a retired project manager for the state, is running on the Democratic line as well as the independent “Affordability Civility and Transparency (ACT)” party line.

Joshua King (Enterprise photo - Aaron Marbone)

Josh King is running as a write-in candidate and will not appear on the ballot, so he was not eligible to participate in the forum. But the Enterprise spoke with him after the event. He is sharing a platform with Stiles and Williams.

Evans and Trudeau are sharing their platform with mayoral candidate and current Trustee Kelly Brunette.

The mayoral candidates also participated in the forum. A story on their portion of the forum can be found at tinyurl.com/unncu93u.

A full audio recording of the trustee portion of the forum can be found at tinyurl.com/534p7d5j.

Candidate pitches

Katie Stiles (Enterprise photo - Aaron Marbone)

Evans said he has 25 years of experience in community and economic development and he’s grateful for the chance to use those skills for his community.

“You might ask, why am I running for trustee when four years ago I ran as mayor? Why don’t I do that again?” Evans said. “I don’t have to be the quarterback, but I want to be on the field.”

Trudeau said he’s not a politician, but appreciates the opportunity to serve his community. He pitched himself as an experienced problem-solver.

Stiles also said she’s not a politician, but she serves on the volunteer downtown advisory board, development board and housing task force, as well as having a day job as real estate professional. She pitched herself as an active and knowledgeable worker.

Challenges

David Trudeau (Enterprise photo - Aaron Marbone)

All candidates were asked, “What are the biggest challenges facing the community right now? And what concrete measures would you take if elected to solve them?”

Evans said villagers are feeling a financial squeeze. This is mostly coming from outside sources, he said, but the village can keep pushing to lower its costs.

“We’ve been spending far too much,” Evans said. “Spending is out of control and it’s going to make it hard for people to live here.”

He feels the increased revenue the village has been getting from interest from the money it stores in banks has “masked” the increased spending, but added that interest rates are on the decline while spending is not. He feels it’s going to be difficult to not go over the tax cap at the current rate.

Trudeau said the village needs to increase the number of houses in the community so the workforce has places to live.

“You can’t bring in higher-paying jobs if there’s nowhere for the people to live,” he said.

As a retired project manager who worked on multi-million-dollar projects for the state Olympic Regional Development Authority and the New York State Energy Development Authority, he feels he can help with public safety building and water/sewer projects.

Stiles said the village needs young families. They need places to live and work affordably.

She said the public safety building is an investment, but it must be affordable.

Stiles said she’s excited about the potential of a housing development at the village-owned sand pit off of Will Rogers Drive and pictures a Fawn Valley-type concept there, where young families can own their own home. Fawn Valley is a new housing complex in Lake Placid.

Evans said he mentioned the sand pit when he was running for mayor four years ago and would make that a top priority.

Trudeau said manufactured homes might work well at the sand pit. He’d also like to use the village Department of Public Works to do infrastructure at the sand pit to reduce costs.

Views

All candidates were asked, “How would you work with other village board members and community residents who do not share your views?”

Stiles said having diverse views on a board is healthy. She said she’d bring humility and an open mind to the board. She said she can learn from the community, board and departments; be respectful of others’ ideas and accept that she’s not always going to be right.

“Just being a good listener and being a team player will hopefully bring us all up,” Stiles said. “There’s no ‘I’ in team.”

“I work well with others. I’ve been doing it for a long time,” Trudeau said.

He said having been on the zoning board, planning board and development board, he has lots of experience working with people with different views.

In democracy, disagreements are expected and whoever has the most votes wins, he said.

“Once that decision is made, you need to put 100% of yourself into making sure you follow through with that decision, whether you agree with it or not,” Trudeau said.

Evans said everything he does in his professional and governmental work is a collaborative effort and that so many of the things he’s been involved in have been improved because of people’s ideas.

“The more I’ve learned about government … the more I’ve learned the value of the ideas that surround me,” Evans said. “Once I learned that, life’s been better.”

Downtown

All candidates were asked, “Do you feel that SL’s downtown area is healthy and successful? If not, what actions would you propose to change that?”

Trudeau said there are lots of empty storefronts downtown. He wants to use housing to draw in businesses.

“To improve the downtown, you have to have available housing,” Trudeau said. “I think if we could solve the housing problem, everything else would fall into place in regards to the downtown area.

“Shop local,” he added.

Evans said that Saranac Lake’s downtown is relatively healthy compared to the region and the nation. He said locals are “spoiled” that way and almost forget it sometimes.

But, he also said the tourism that bolsters the economy is seasonal. He said events and housing are needed to drive off-season traffic.

Evans also said he wants more business owners to own their own buildings and would encourage that from the board.

Stiles said the village downtown is showing encouraging signs – “now more than ever” – and that she’s been part of that.

Four years ago, she said there were 12 empty storefronts between Berkeley Square and the post office. That’s been reduced, and she’s personally been involved in renovating the long-vacant Loomis Block storefronts on the corner of Broadway and Woodruff Street.

Regret

All candidates were asked to, “Detail a regret you have from your years on the board or time in previous work, what you learned from it and what you are doing to avoid a similar regret.”

Evans said it took him a while to realize that the decisions a municipality makes have many inputs, and that he was one part of a larger group of people.

When he was the village’s community development director, he said he internalized too much.

“Compromise may actually be the best result for the community, even if it wasn’t my original or wasn’t what my preference was,” Evans said.

“I am always a work in progress,” Stiles said.

She said she has learned to actively be learning and being open-minded to new ideas.

She added that she has an ability to recognize mistakes or if her goals need to change.

Trudeau said when he was on the zoning and planning boards he tried to please everyone. That’s impossible, he said, but you can’t let that bother you.

He said compromise is necessary to find the best decision, and you have to go with it, even if some people are not happy.

Housing

All candidates were asked, “What are your plans to address the affordable housing shortage, increase the quality of housing, keep tenants safe and ensure units are up to code?”

Stiles said she wants a diverse type of housing. She said she wants to give people the opportunity to own their own homes, like Fawn Valley.

This opens up other stock for new people to move here. She also said the code enforcement is better now than it was before.

Evans said he wants housing downtown, which would also get more people into stores and restaurants and address two problems at once.

Large development takes a long time, he said. In addition to these larger projects, he wants to encourage people who are buying and renovating one or two buildings at a time, or building accessory dwelling units on their property.

To do this, he said the housing task force needs more resources and help from village staff. Same with code enforcement, he added.

“The village does not have enough resources to fully administer the New York state building code the way it’s supposed to,” Evans said. “One person is not enough.”

He felt the village took a step backward when the current administration eliminated the development code administrator position and shifted the power of development code enforcement in the village from a code enforcement officer to the community development director in 2022.

Trudeau said Mayor Jimmy Williams and Code Enforcement Officer Zacharia Peltier are working to bring vacant houses online.

He said they’ve made working with owners to inspect apartments a higher priority and that he wants to keep that up.

He envisions a Habitat for Humanity-type structure at the sand pit, where homes are sold below market rate with conditions that people have to live there for at least five years and when they sell, the price they sell at is only at however much inflation went up in that time. This keeps affordable housing affordable, he said.

Grant dream

All candidates were asked, “If you received a $5 million grant to use for the village in any way you wanted, what would you do with that grant and why?”

Trudeau said he’d put it into the public safety building and infrastructure repairs. He said the village is getting a lot of grants, but the village will have to pony up, too. He said this work should be done in a wise way, so critical projects don’t impact taxpayers too much.

Stiles said she’d put it into the public safety building, to make it a reality after “40 years of no action.” The more the village procrastinates, the more expensive it gets, she said.

Evans said he’d put it into housing. Housing increases the tax base, puts more kids in schools and would increase volunteerism, he said.

“If you can’t afford to live here as somebody who is working and trying to volunteer as a firefighter, what good is a building?” Evans said.

He also felt that using the 33 Petrova property as housing for first responders as well as the site of a public safety building is an idea that hasn’t been discussed enough.

Questions

All candidates got the opportunity to ask one question to another candidate.

Evans said he sees a looming financial crisis facing the village and asked Stiles how she would address it.

Stiles said she’d consult with the board, treasurer and village manager to learn why and how to correct it.

“I feel like this has been productive, and I feel like Jeremy’s question was respectful, and I appreciate the opportunity answering it,” Stiles said. “I think I’m going to pass on that.”

She encouraged voters to reach out to her to talk.

Trudeau declined to ask a question.

King

King said the village’s biggest challenges are the public safety building and housing.

He wants to come at housing from a jobs angle. He said the village needs more jobs for young professionals to come, simultaneously with housing development.

“If we build all these apartment complexes, but we don’t have people living in them because they don’t have a job,” King said.

He added that having a good home for emergency services is a key to that.

King talked about how, since he announced his plans to run for office, he’s spoken with Republicans and Democrats – and mentioned people who often disagree with each other. He said he’s able to talk with anyone, including people on both sides of a political divide.

He said, if elected, he’d explain his reasons for his votes and seek feedback on them.

While disagreements happen on a board. He said he’d respect everyone’s ideas.

King said the village downtown is healthy, but needs help.

He said retail is not doing well in the internet era, so the downtown needs different opportunities. Retail is not be-all end-all, he added. It only employs a few people and the owner usually has to run it. He’d like to find another source of jobs – not big manufacturing, but something in environmental science or health care, similar to Bionique.

A high quality of life is what brought people to the area during the tuberculosis era, he said, and that quality of life can be used to draw these professionals in today.

King said he regrets that in his 20s he didn’t spend more time getting to know the people he worked with, putting himself in their shoes to understand why they think what they think.

He said it’s important to him to get more people’s advice and not just rely on his own knowledge.

King said there are a lot of vacant homes. The village needs to knock on doors and find a future for them, he said.

Building new housing is great, he said, but he loves the idea of fixing up what exists. This can be done quicker, he said.

King said he’s had employees who have been impacted by apartment fires and has seen what it does to them.

He said the village needs more people on code enforcement. It should go in conjunction with housing development, he said.

If the village got a $5 million grant to be used on anything, he said he would put it toward a public safety building, “All day, every day.”

Election information

Voting in the election will be held on March 18 in the Harrietstown Town Hall auditorium at 39 Main St. from noon to 9 p.m.

The last day to register to vote in this election has passed. The last day to apply for an absentee ballot has passed.

More information for the Franklin County Board of Elections can be found at tinyurl.com/bdbzacv2. More information for the Essex County Board of Elections can be found at essexcountyny.gov/board-of-elections.

To reach Aaron Marbone, email him at acerbone@adirondackdailyenterprise.com