Adirondack Daily Enterprise<\/a>.<\/p>\n“It’s also a loss of bed tax revenues. Some 700 rooms on the North Elba side would be lost in terms of bed tax revenue.”<\/p>\n
No government wants to give up revenue.\u00a0 But one of the basic concepts in our democracy is that we don’t tax people without representing them.<\/p>\n
People are citizens first, taxpayers second.<\/p>\n
A big chunk of North Elba — the town Mr. Politi leads — actually resides in Saranac Lake.\u00a0 But not one of the town’s board members comes from this community.<\/p>\n
There is a vestigial North Elba meeting house in Saranac Lake, but the town board never holds meetings here.<\/p>\n
I am, in theory, one of Mr. Politi’s constituents, but have never thought of myself as a North Elban.\u00a0 My neighbors and I think of ourselves as Saranac Lakers, plain and simple.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, it’s clear that Mr. Politi thinks of himself as a Lake Placid resident, one who has spent years working honorably to improve and benefit that community.<\/p>\n
The dangers of this arrangement were laid bare a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n
An official with North Country Community College raised the idea of moving the school’s main campus from Saranac Lake to Lake Placid.<\/p>\n
The move would have devastated Saranac Lake’s economy and left a huge crater in the community’s cultural life.<\/p>\n
Yet the North Elba town supervisor at the time — Lake Placidian Shirley Seney — cheerfully embraced the idea.<\/p>\n
And why not?\u00a0 Her job, as everyone understood, was to represent and improve the community around Lake Placid.<\/p>\n
But it’s not just North Elba that taxes Saranac Lake without defending its interests.<\/p>\n
On the Essex County board of supervisors, there isn’t — and to my\u00a0 knowledge never has been — a Saranac Laker.<\/p>\n
Even split in half, the village is one of the two or three largest population centers in the county, yet has no voice and no vote.<\/p>\n
The economic decisions that shape our lives are made by elected officials from Minerva, Schroon, and Ticonderoga, with no Saranac Lakers at the table.<\/p>\n
Over the years I’ve attended dozens (hundreds?) of meetings talking about how to revitalize Saranac Lake, grow its jobs, and bring back better retail opportunities.<\/p>\n
Officials from Essex County played no significant role in these efforts.\u00a0 Their attentions, understandably, are directed elsewhere.<\/p>\n
But they still want our tax dollars.<\/p>\n
Saranac Lake village trustee Jeff Branch bravely tried to make the argument that this situation is unfair and unsustainable.<\/p>\n
“Look at the geographic boundaries of this village,” he said.\u00a0 “Spend a day in my shoes, and you’ll understand how hard it is over here. This is about Saranac Lake; it’s not about the counties.”<\/p>\n
Given the response from our neighbors this week, it’s obvious that the road to freeing and unifying Saranac Lake won’t be easy.<\/p>\n
But the debate at least clarified that the motives for holding the village hostage are entirely financial.<\/p>\n
Sadly, our neighbors want to continue milking dollars from a community that they don’t have much interest in representing or working to improve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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