$27,500,000, plus. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste that much money.

Indeed, $150,000 has been blown already on planning from Wendel Five Bugles. They used our $150K to increase the size of the proposed emergency services building from the original 35,160 square feet to 67,233 (almost doubled).

The village hasn’t gotten larger; in fact, it’s shrinking. This is “alternate logic.” You can’t learn it in school. Wendel and the Five Bugles follow the age-old adage of government: “Why build one when you can have two at twice the price?”

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Did the village ignore the needs of the SLVFD?

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This is the first of a thrilling two-part series which asks and answers questions our village board has been afraid or unwilling to either answer or ask, like, why did the village of Saranac Lake ignore the needs of the SLVFD for all those years, as the current administration has frequently stated?

The answer is the village did not ignore those needs. The DPW has a great building on Van Buren Street. The fire department was offered a new building on Van Buren years ago, but they turned it down in favor of building an addition to the present Broadway station. Similarly, they rejected the Lake Colby location, which was offered. That’s OK! Because the village purchased two parcels of land adjacent to the firehouse for an addition.

Negative spin

Mayor Jimmy Williams said the project to get the departments better homes has been put off for 40 years. While his heart might be in the right place, that is simply not accurate.

During those years, the rescue squad became a separate entity from the fire department. SL Rescue had income of $1.7 million in 2023 against $1.4 million in expenses as reported to the IRS. They own their building and have an impressive bank balance.

The SLPD likes the old armory, where they are now based. Moving from the town hall to the old village office building, years ago, was also an upgrade, if not completely satisfactory.

Past village governments decidedly did not ignore their needs. That is only a negative spin, which brings up an important dynamic, namely the us-versus-them mentality. Discussions regarding this project have been couched negatively. The idea is that if you’re not in favor of spending $27.5 million, you must be anti-fire department, police department or rescue.

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The plan’s no good

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The gigantic expenditure is not exactly the point. If there were no other alternatives, we’d all be behind this plan 100%, full-speed ahead and damn the torpedoes (like the village is currently doing). However, there are not just alternatives, but better ones.

The plan is no good. The stated needs for vehicle and apparatus bays have been cut in favor of the Pius remodel, which in the latest design, includes 20 bedrooms, six kitchens and three conference rooms. No matter how you try to dress up the old Pius High School, you can’t sugarcoat the inherent flaws. The Pius project is all hat and no cattle. It’s all fur coat and no knickers.

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Next up: sensible alternatives

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When people in different groups have an opportunity to cooperate, to work together on a common goal, the us-versus-them mindset is reduced. We Saranac Lakers, need transparency and openness from our government. We’re not getting that. FOIL requests are refused. Sensible alternatives are unexplored. We’ll consider those in the next installment: “Where’s your money going?”

Did you know that the village board recently voted for $71 million in bonding for other projects? Did you know that a village can go bankrupt? Bankruptcy is a long and arduous process for a municipality and certainly not something entered into casually. For municipal bondholders and investors, Chapter 9 filings are likely to continue to be a more common occurrence. To be continued …

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Dan Reilly lives in Saranac Lake. This guest commentary is the first of two parts; the second will run in tomorrow’s Enterprise.