To the editor:

This letter is directed to the community of Tupper Lake and the village of Tupper Lake mayor and board of trustees.

How much grant funding has been given to the project at the former Oval Wood Dish Corporation site on Demars Boulevard? Where does this project stand?

I must wonder if those grant funds might not have been better spent by granting them to the partners of the proposed hotel project located across from the Tupper Lake Free Press office on Park Street.

How much grant funding would be necessary to make that project a reality?

The project for a new hotel located in our community’s uptown business district is a great idea, in my opinion. This idea was put forth by individuals who were involved in the creation of The Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks, better known as The Wild Center. I should know, as I was one of the three original cofounders of that project. These folks worked hard to bring a world-class facility, The Wild Center, to Tupper Lake, our hometown.

Yet it seems to me that their local hard work has been forgotten when it comes to our municipality working with them to bring a first-class new hotel to Tupper Lake. If the OWD project fails and the grant funds that the project received are available, you might consider granting them to this hotel project.

Why not invite the hotel developers to a village board meeting and ask them where they are at and what is needed to complete their hotel project? Would it not make sense to have an anchor hotel located just off the uptown business district? You, the developers of the uptown hotel project, should welcome a meeting with the village board.

Finally, I want to personally thank the village mayor, Mary Fontana, for a job exceptionally well done when she attended last month’s Adirondack Park Agency meeting in Ray Brook. Her showing them just what our small town is dealing with when it comes to potable water may well move the needle in Albany when it comes to underwriting the cost to Tupper Lake for the state and the engineering firm that the village hired making mistakes on the well siting. The village of Tupper Lake should bring suit against both entities for not doing due diligence before signing off on the well sites near Iron Mountain. Tupper Lake should be reimbursed 100% of the well project cost by the state of New York and the village’s engineering firm.

Dean D. Lefebvre

A lifelong Tupper Laker