Ellenville looks anew at whether to dissolve

An informational meeting Monday evening will focus on steps that must be taken before Ellenville residents can vote on whether to dissolve the village.

The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. in the municipal center at 2 Elting Court.

“We’ve [discussed] this through the years — the pros and the cons, and trying to be as efficient as possible,” village Mayor Jeff Kaplan said Thursday. “It would be discussing reducing the tax burden ... and at the same time discussing all the services that might go away, as well as all the jobs that would be affected.”

Kaplan said Ulster County Executive Michael Hein has earmarked $50,000 in state grant money to study the possibility of dissolution, and Hein said on Thursday that the county also is willing to contribute professional assistance for the study.

Dissolving the village could help Ulster County secure $20 million in state funds to put toward improving government services.

Hein said there seemed to be support for a dissolution study among community leaders during a meeting in Ellenville earlier this week.

“If you stand at the Town Hall and you walk

out the front door and you look to your right, you can see the Village Hall,” he said. “That really is an example of the kind of duplication that you’re seeing.”

The study is expected to look into, among other things, the financial impact on the town of Wawarsing, in which Ellenville is located, and how water, sewer and lighting districts would be established so that only users would pay for those services.

Kaplan said another key consideration is maintaining the current level of police coverage in Ellenville, which has its own police department.

“Ellenville has a unique problem that other villages may not have, and that is that you have a village with an extended police department and no town police department,” the mayor said. “That has always been a problem when we’ve talked dissolution because there is no such thing as a police district or a special district servicing the community for just police protection. So you’d be left with either the town having to have a townwide police department, or the county and state would now have to be somehow responsible for police protection.”

Kaplan said a committee of active and retired law-enforcement representatives recently explored dissolution and how it might impact police services.

“The consensus is clearly you need a dedicated police department in Ellenville,” he said. “When you have such a densely populated area such as this ... you can’t rely on a [county] sheriff’s station two miles down the road.”

Hein said Thursday that suggestions about police coverage will be included in the study.

“You may have a situation where the village police force becomes a component of the county Sheriff’s Office, and a dedicated squad is located right there in Ellenville to ensure ... comparable [coverage], if not more,” he said.

Kaplan said previous considerations of dissolving the village, including a review two years ago, were shelved because voter approval seemed unlikely.

But now, he said, the push for dissolution is coming largely from outside the community.

“We continue to look at this issue ... especially since you have a governor who is pressing for consolidation [and] who one day may wake up and say there’ll be no more villages in five years,” the mayor said.

Of Ellenville’s dissolution resulting in a $20 million state outlay for Ulster County, Kaplan said: “If ... the $20 million is then contingent upon [dissolution], there will be somewhat of a gun to our head. But at the end of the day, if we can’t satisfy the village residents ... it’s going to be very difficult to get a mandatory referendum.”

Hein said the portion of the $20 million that would go to Ellenville would be determined later in the process, and he noted that other projects — including improving the county’s 911 call center, developing a countywide fire training center and improving the county’s mass transit system — also could be in line for assistance.

Ellenville is one of three villages in Ulster County. The others are New Paltz and Saugerties.