To the editor:

“Field of Dreams” was a movie.

The belief that recruitment and retention require a new building is simply false.

“If we build it, they will come” only works when people are being pulled by purpose — because purpose shapes core beliefs, and core beliefs create culture.

In 1999, after separating from the Warrensburg Fire Company, our new emergency squad started with 19 members who formed Warrensburg Emergency Services Inc. We didn’t have a new facility. We rented garage bays at the town DPW. We installed electric garage door openers. Even with heat, duty crews sometimes sat in the ambulance just to keep their feet warm.

From those humble beginnings, we grew from 19 members to 72 in the next 18 months.

We later secured a grant to purchase and remodel a centrally located building in the village. But the building did not create the growth.

Purpose created the growth.

We established core values that were chosen by the membership:

“Our patients are our first priority.”

“Our members are our greatest assets.”

Those values went on the flag in our meeting room. They went on the ambulance doors. And as CEO, I directed the board to run every expense through those values: If a proposed expense didn’t support those core values, we didn’t spend the money.

Twenty-six years later, Warrensburg Emergency Services is still in that same building. And the same Core Values can be seen on page one of their website.

A building didn’t make that organization succeed.

Synchronized purpose did.

And that purpose created a culture that people wanted to join and stay in.

That same principle is true at a national level: our democracy was formed through synchronized hope for a better future. Everything that came after depended on synchronized purpose — not incentives, not short-term measures, and not physical structures.

So let’s use logic and fiscal responsibility to govern village expenditures.

If our private ambulance service needs better funding, let them pursue a tax district aligned with the footprint of their operating certificate — so everyone in that service area funds the service. As a private 501(c)(3), SLVRS can manage its organization as it sees fit.

But I do not believe the village of Saranac Lake bears sole responsibility for funding a new building for a private regional service.

William N. Martin

Saranac Lake