Town and village of New Paltz exploring merger
NEW PALTZ — On Jan. 24, an industrial-sized rain barrel steadily filled up in the New Paltz Village Hall meeting room. It was a dismal night for a joint special session between village and town leaders, who’d gathered before about a dozen residents.
Yet that drip-drip-drip was an apt metaphor for why the two boards, after much discussion, voted to again explore a merger between the two New Paltzes. Officials say doing so could streamline local government operations, saving taxpayers money.
This isn’t the first time village and town leaders have explored the idea. The last serious effort began in the wake of the Great Recession. An extensive study prepared by Fairweather Consulting found that slightly higher taxes for townspeople and slightly lower water fees for villagers would roughly equalize the cost burden. But the process crumbled in 2014 after politicians learned that their desired method of merging would require the state to change its laws.
What’s different now is that the co-governed areas share fire services. That wasn’t the case in 2014, when creating a fire district in the town would’ve been too costly. The village and town also share a police department and a justice court.
Village Mayor Tim Rogers proposed the merger at a board meeting earlier this month. He submitted a draft proposal that outlined potential upsides, including taking advantage of the New York Government
Reorganization and Citizen Empowerment Act which, according to Rogers, could save the combined population of roughly 15,000 taxpayers $1 million annually.
If the merger eventually happens — it could be on the ballot as soon as November — it would create a single form of government and liquidate the two boards. Present leaders would then continue serving for another year to guide the process and run for newly created offices as soon as 2025.
“It’s about time,” Town Supervisor Neil Bettez told the Times Union just ahead of the vote. “It’s going to happen, eventually, whether now or in five to 10 years, because we’re already moving in that direction.”
In New York, towns are governed by boards, which have both legislative and executive functions. Town supervisors are traditionally granted little executive power. Villages, on the other hand, are governed by boards and a chief executive — usually a mayor — who has greater statutory authority over laws. A village remains part of the town in which it’s incorporated, and its residents continue to be town taxpayers.
Bettez explained that New Paltz’s joint governance is a bit unique since the populations of the village and town are almost even, unlike in other parts of New York, where one town might include several smaller villages.
“The village form of government is considered more effective and efficient,” Rogers said in an interview, adding that New York didn’t design towns to run water and sewer systems,
“whereas villages are more like a small city.”
At the hearing, Rogers argued that “you can take the good things about a town and the good things about a village to create a new government.”
Hacking through red tape
In separate interviews, Bettez and Rogers each explained what they hope to learn from further study — as well as some concerns.
Last week’s vote initiated the pursuit of a state grant to study coterminous government, where village boundaries would extend to meet the town’s. Both leaders agreed that the study would be built upon the Fairweather report. And each hopes a merged structure would address red tape around zoning, planning and municipal services.
As an example, Bettez raised a proposed 250-unit development just south of the SUNY New Paltz campus called New Paltz Apartments. What’s problematic, he said, is that the complex is on town land and it needs water and sewer services. But the town doesn’t operate sewer and water — the village does. That means the developer has to apply to have that land annexed by the village, a bureaucratic hurdle Bettez said restricts the town’s ability to build.
“If you’re a single municipality, you would be looking at the whole picture and asking, where do we want to put development?” Bettez said.
Another such site is the former Route 87 Motel property at Thruway Exit 18. “There are no water or sewer connections,” Bettez said, which has been a
hangup for developers. “It’s some of the most valuable land and it’s vacant — we’re getting no taxes, no benefits with jobs or anything else.”
Rogers agreed and said that in this case, the village is also stuck: the property doesn’t physically border the village so it cannot be annexed, and therefore by law the village cannot aid the town with sewer and water.
Speaking of these services, Rogers said that the village’s water treatment plant is actually on town land. “The village is not legally allowed to own that property,” he said. Instead, it leases the property from the town, then sells the water it treats back to the town and SUNY New Paltz.
“It’s just bonkers and that speaks to how unnecessarily cumbersome a lot of this stuff is,” Rogers
said.
Fears and hopes
At the public meeting, Rogers made plain that although his initial outline called for an update to the Fairweather report, followed by open meetings and a public education campaign before a referendum in November, that could be subject to change.
“We’re in no way handcuffed,” he said, but the idea for moving quickly is to avoid a special election, where turnout tends to be lower.
Rogers also thinks that a combined New Paltz could carry more weight in Albany. “When you’re larger, you have more influence. Representatives in New York, even D.C., are more likely to pay attention to you,” he said.
As for residents, while some in attendance at the meeting voiced fears this might be moving too fast, others were cautiously optimistic. The biggest obstacle could be that some townspeople who aren’t on sewer and water might feel like they’re paying for those utilities through their taxes even if they’re not using them.
“If all the focus goes to those capital projects,” Bettez feared, you might have a “‘what-about-us?’ problem.”
Less concerning for both politicians was creating a form of government that could push either of them out of a job. When asked about what’s different this time around, Rogers said bluntly, “Both Neil and I — neither one of us is trying to seek higher office. We’re just doing this because we think it’s a way to serve our community.”