Photo by Tom Rivers – A “No Dissolution” sign, one of many in the Medina community, appears on West Center Street.

MEDINA – Village residents voted to keep their village government today in one of the busiest and most contentious local elections in recent memory.

By a 949 to 527 vote, residents voted to reject dissolving the village. That will preserve the police department, a paid fire department, Department of Public Works and other village employees.

Supporters of dissolution pushed to dissolve the village, saying it would cut about $6 off the tax rate for village property owners, who pay one of the biggest combined tax rates in the state. That would have cut village taxes by $420 for a house assessed at $70,000.

But residents against dissolution worried about the loss of services. Town officials in Shelby and Ridgeway said they wouldn’t match the “heightened services” that villagers currently enjoy.

Orleans Hub will have more coverage on the dissolution vote.

Voters go to polls from noon to 9 p.m.

Photo by Tom Rivers – Village residents will vote today at the former New York Central Railroad Station, which is currently the Senior Center at 615 West St.

MEDINA – Village residents 18 and older will go to the polls today to decide if Medina will continue its village government.

Dissolution has been in the news for many months, even drawing the attention of media in Rochester and Buffalo. Supporters of dissolution say it will help reduce the tax burden on village residents, who pay one of the highest combined tax rates for school, village, town and county taxes in the state.

Dissolution opponents fear critical village services would be lost, especially with police and a paid fire department. They point to Lyons, which last year voted to dissolve its village with a plan for the Town of Lyons to assume police services.

The Town Board has decided not to continue the Lyons Police Department, with the calls to be handled by the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department after Dec. 31.

Photos by Tom Rivers
MEDINA – Village residents are showing up in big numbers at the polls today to vote whether or not the village government should dissolve.

East Center Street is lined with signs, showing support for dissolution and also urging villagers to oppose it.

These signs appear in a front yard along South Main Street.

About 200 people voted in the first two hours the polls were open after noon today. Voting is at the Senior Center at 615 West Ave.

Village residents are asked one question: “Shall the Village of Medina, New York be dissolved?”

Norma Huth, right, is one of the election inspectors inside the Senior Center.

Two voters leave the polls and another resident makes her way to the voting site, which will be open until 9 p.m.

This vehicle parked in a village municipal lot shows how one person feels about the dissolution issue.

Boundaries have been established as people make their way to the polls.

The name, “MEDINA,” is on the train depot, which is now the Senior Center. Orleans Hub will have results of the referendum later tonight.

About 3,000 eligible to vote on dissolution

MEDINA – A big turnout is expected at the polls today when the Village of Medina votes whether or not to dissolve the village government.

There are about 3,000 eligible voters. Residents 18 and over had to register to vote with the Orleans County Board of Elections by 10 days before today’s election.

There are 37 absentee ballots, and most have already been received by this morning, said Village Clerk-Treasurer Debbie Padoleski. Another 49 ballots were issued to disabled residents. All of these ballots need to be in today to count in the election.

The polls will be open from noon to 9 p.m. at the Senior Center at 615 West Ave. Residents will be asked “Shall the Village of Medina, NY, be dissolved?”

The votes will be cast on paper ballots. Padoleski expects election inspectors will have the votes counted by 9:30 to 10 p.m.

Recent village elections have had light turnouts. A mayor and trustee election last March only turned out about 400 voters. Two write-in candidates, Mike Sidari and Marguerite Sherman, pulled off an upset in that election, which included Andrew Meier as an unopposed candidate for mayor.

In March 2009, about 600 people voted in a trustee race where Kelly Kiebala and Mark Irwin were victorious over Owen Toale and Clayton Ehrenreich.

A year after that election, Ehrenreich and Tabelski both ran for mayor. About 800 people voted then, with Tabelski, the incumbent, winning another two-year term.

Padoleski said the village elections used to draw more people to the polls. She remembers when the races would bring out at least 1,000 voters.

She expects a big turnout today.

Editor:

When people try to justify dissolution, they often say that talks were getting nowhere. Mayor Meier called it a brick wall he was up against. But when I analyze that wall, I can’t help but ask: Who laid the bricks?

Shared services discussions started and then fell apart a couple of years ago. Happily, talks resumed. There were cautious overtures made between individuals on all three sides.

But then, right as things were getting going, the mayor made the choice to seek a grant for a dissolution study. This was after that same agency (CGR) he tasked with developing a feasibility study which had already recommended shared services as a better option for Medina.

Most recently, even when the community made it clear they were ambivalent at best regarding the prospect of dissolution, and village trustees insisted the mayor renew shared services talks with Shelby and Ridgeway, Mayor Meier worked alongside the group One Medina to collect signatures to force the vote for dissolution. I know he felt strongly about it. And I know he truly loves Medina, his home.

Yet, by primarily focusing on dissolution efforts, in the midst of shared services talks, feelings of disbelief, mistrust, and betrayal developed amongst both town boards. Never were shared services, and the elimination of duplicated services, truly explored as extensively as they should have been.

Seeking dissolution smack dab in the middle of shared services talks is like asking your cousins to help you fix up the family homestead grandpa left everyone, and then, right when everyone’s set aside the time, gotten their tools ready and rolled up their sleeves, your cousin Jeb shows up with a bulldozer. Just in case.

It begs the question: Why? Maybe, just maybe, dissolution is being sought so aggressively because it means dissolving existing contracts between the village and its workforce. Maybe those employees will make out fine, maybe not. I doubt they’ll be just fine. The very community Medina was asked to compare itself to, Seneca Falls, admitted that their police officers faced a $2/hour wage cut after they dissolved.

It doesn’t sound that bad until you do the math: working a regular 40-hour week, that’s $80 a week. That’s a major portion of the week’s grocery bill. We’re not talking chump change. We’re talking about a living expense. We’re talking about upwards of $4,000 in a year.

Proponents of dissolution talk often about how the village will keep its services and village employees will keep their jobs. What they’re much less forthcoming about is in terms of what happens to the public employees’ contracts. And that’s just not right. Dissolution will wreak havoc in the lives of village employees, change the quality of services and throw this entire community in to a tailspin, with Ridgeway and Shelby being left to pick up the pieces.

If the village thinks there are employees who make too much or who need to make concessions, there’s a way to deal with thatthe bargaining table.

I saw my father-in-law go through this same scenario after he retired from Harrison Radiator. Two years into his retirement, they jerked the rug out from under him and said, “Oh hey, sorry about that. Your contract doesn’t exist anymore.” Gone was half his pension and gone was more than half of his health insurance benefits. Anyone who knows people in the area that went through this know what I’m talking about. It’s criminal. To see a similar situation brewing on Medina’s own horizon is horrifying. And to see it possibly happen to the people who risk their lives for us? Even worse.

So what to do? It seems as though everyone is being told there are only two solutions: Dissolve, or Be Crushed (by overwhelming taxation and duplication of services). But this notion that there is only one solution is not true. There are at least two other options.

One, the three sides need to get back to the work already begun on shared services talks. If voters (from any of the three entities) feel that there is stonewalling or an unwillingness to cooperate from any elected official then that is the time to exercise your voting rights and your right to run for office.

And two, the towns and the village need to press the state to be more forthcoming with the monies that are rightfully ours. (Click here to see “State shortchanges villages with aid, leading to their demise” and Click here to see “Here’s a resolution that every elected official in Orleans should support.”

Both ideas are a place to begin. I hope that on Tuesday, the villagers of Medina vote No on dissolution, and give shared services and cooperation a real chance.

On Wednesday, I hope all of us can begin anew: the Village of Medina, the Town of Ridgeway, and the Town of Shelby, dedicated as one to autonomy, to representation, and to cooperation.

Respectfully,

Karen Jones
Shelby

Editorial

That will be the question Tuesday, when village residents go to the polls from noon to 9 p.m. at the Senior Center

MEDINA – Dissolution of the village has been a heated topic for much of the past year. You don’t see much sustained interest in civic affairs these days, with public policy issues bringing hundreds of people to informational meetings.

Residents have been inundated with messages from the media, paid mailers, yard signs and impassioned citizens on both sides. The dissolution issue has drawn the attention of media throughout Western New York. Many villages wrestle with similar issues faced in Medina: escalating taxes on a shrinking tax base and population.

One thing is clear: villagers and people outside the village value the work done by the Medina Fire Department, the Police Department, the Department of Public Works and other village staff. The village isn’t putting out a bad product.

The issue is money and how to pay for these services. The village receives little in state aid and from the local sales tax dollars to help pay for these services. That seems unlikely to change.

State funding

Orleans Hub has written about the funding disparity from the state for Aid and Incentives to Municipalities. Villages get about $7 per capita in AIM funding while upstate cities get $277 per person. It is a dramatic difference and it’s a big reason while city taxes are much lower than in villages like Medina. Consider that the City of Batavia has a tax rate of about $9 per $1,000 of assessed property and the village of Medina has a combined village/town rate of about $20.

Medina, population 6,065, receives $38,811 in AIM funding. Salamanca in Cattaraugus County is nearly the same size and gets $928,131 for a city of 5,815 people.

Fair AIM funding would do more for Medina than dissolution. The question is whether the village would ever get much more in AIM. I don’t think so under Gov. Andrew Cuomo and this State Legislature. The governor wants fewer governments, and villages are an extra layer within towns.

The governor supports state funding to dissolve or consolidate governments. That incentive would be $541,000 for the Medina community.

I’d like to see more. Only 11 villages out of about 550 have followed through with dissolution since 2009. Many of them are tiny without police.

Many of the villages don’t trust that the state incentive money will be there for years to come. No one can say for sure.

If the state wants to promote more dissolutions it should increase the incentive. Right now it’s 15 percent of the combined tax levy in the affected municipalities. I’d like to see at least $1 million for the Medina community. That’s about what Medina would get in AIM funding if it were a city.

Village residents need to consider the political environment. Is there a reasonable chance the AIM funding will be increased? The governor this past week announced a $1.7 billion tax relief proposal for upstate. He didn’t include more AIM money.

Our state legislators don’t seem optimistic we’d get more, and frankly it’s not an issue they’ve rallied behind. None of the local towns or the county have taken up the fight to help villages get more AIM funding. The municipalities haven’t even passed a symbolic resolution of support.

Our poorest people pay the highest taxes

Medina village residents receive “heightened services” with police and a paid fire department. Those employees will often go outside village borders to assist in the towns. The Medina Police Department responds to about 200 calls outside the village annually, for example.

The village property owners foot the bill for all of this work. And then they pay in town and county taxes.

The Medina Fire Department heads down East Center Street on an ambulance call Friday that was outside the village.

It wasn’t too long ago when Middle Class families and the more well-to-do made villages their destination of choice for owning a home. The taxes may have been higher, but the residents could afford it. The poorer folks tended to be out in the country.

Those roles have reversed. Census data shows the median household income in the Village of Medina from 2009 to 2013 is $40,014 for 2,409 households. The Census Bureau reports 20.9 percent of those are in poverty.

Countywide, the data is better. The median household income is $48,502. Of the 15,725 households, 13.4 percent are in poverty.

The poorer people now tend to live in the village, and they pay the bigger tax bill – a combined $54 per $1,000 of assessed property, one of the highest rates in the state.
Move outside the village lines and people can lop about $12 off that tax rate. On a $100,000 house you save about $1,200. That is a tough disincentive for the village to overcome.

The discrepancy has driven out investment and residents. Many of the businesses – manufacturers and retail – will set up just outside the village lines where there is close access to the population but a much smaller tax bill. Those businesses also can tap into village water and sewer (at a slightly higher rate). If they have a fire or police emergency, Medina will be quickly on the scene.

A community in decline

Medina’s downtown has seen a rebirth in businesses and events, including the Parade of Lights. But the neighborhoods are struggling.

The assessments in Medina, for the houses especially, have been falling. Overall, the village tax base was $156.0 million in 2005. Almost a decade later in 2014 it was at $166.3 million. That includes $4.1 million for Orchard Manor, which came on the tax rolls for the first time in 2013. That is a 6.6 percent growth over nearly a decade, which doesn’t it keep up with inflation.

If you take off the Orchard Manor assessment, the village’s taxable value has fallen from $166.1 million in 2007 to $162.2 million in 2014.

Go outside the village line in Shelby and Ridgeway, and the home and land values saw significant increases. The outside-village land in Shelby grew from $86.5 million in 2005 to $108.3 million in 2014. In Ridgeway, the outside-village land increased from $102.5 million in 2005 to $128.2 million in 2014, according to data from the Orleans County Real Property Tax Service.

Shelby grew 25.2 percent outside the village and Ridgeway jumped 25.1 percent during the nine years.

These numbers should sound an alarm for the village. Orleans Hub has written extensively about the difficult position the local villages are in. Many people tell me I’m too “Pro Dissolution.”

I live in the Village of Albion. I want to see the villages of Holley, Lyndonville, Medina and Albion all be vibrant communities today.

But I recognize there is a major problem here. I hear the stories first-hand about people moving out, or staying and being crushed by their taxes. Many more people want to move out but they can’t sell their house, or they are offered a fraction of what they paid for it – with that sale price from 15 to 20 years ago.

The marketing and public relations specialists hired to defeat dissolution have used images of Medina that show a vibrant downtown and charming scenes along the Erie Canal.

Thankfully, some of that still exists. But the Medina story includes neighborhoods in decline, houses abandoned or in neglect. An anonymous donor has provided $400,000 in matching funds to get houses painted and windows repaired the past two years. That has helped the community look more appealing, but this village is clearly suffering.

These boarded-up houses at 613-615 and 617 Genesee St. were torn down in November 2013. They depressed the neighborhood. The village would like to take down more houses, but they are costly projects.

When I talk with local officials at the village, town, county and state levels, I often tell them they shouldn’t just judge Medina on the downtown. Look at the whole community, and look at the numbers.

And face the prospect that it could get worse.

The village gets very little in sales tax revenue

The village needs money to tackle its problems and to lower its taxes. I’ve advocated that the county share more of the local sales tax. Our county gets about $15 million a year in the sales tax, mainly from retail establishments in the villages or close to the village lines.

But only about $400,000 of the total, less than 3 percent, is redirected to the villages. The county shares $1,366,671 of the $15 million with the 10 towns and four villages. That share has been frozen since 2001. That year the county took in about $10 million in sales tax. It has increased by 50 percent or $5 million since then, and all of that increase has stayed with the county government.

The county leaders say they are burdened with Medicaid, state mandates and community college charge backs. When pressed on the issue, the county officials say they don’t have to share any sales tax with the towns of villages. Some counties don’t share sales tax, including Wyoming County. However that county runs the local hospital and nursing home.

In Orleans, the county is far less burdened with services. Much of the critical work is done at the town and village level, yet they get very little of the sales tax money.

Genesee County shares 50 percent of the sales tax with its towns, villages and the City of Batavia. Those communities have much smaller tax rates than in Orleans. Consider the Village of Oakfield, population 1,813. It will get about $300,000 in sales tax from Genesee in 2014. Medina, population 6,065, will receive $159,586.

There doesn’t seem to be any willingness from Orleans County to give more to the villages or towns. Keep in mind, Holley, Albion and Medina all have police departments that allow the county to run a smaller Sheriff’s Department, saving county taxpayers from an increase in costs with more deputies. It would make sense to direct more sales tax to the villages to help pay for the police protection.

The ethanol plant tax windfall – for everyone except the village
Western New York Energy opened in late 2007, producing about 55 million gallons of ethanol a year from a site at the corner of Bates Road and Route 31A.

The company has been a goldmine of new tax revenue for the governments in the Medina area, except for the village. The plant is on the east side of Bates Road – not the west side. Same thing with Brunner and that puts the companies just outside the village limits.

Brunner has grown in the Medina community, putting on additions at its site at the corner of Bates Road and Route 31. The company is on the east side of Bates Road, just outside the village line, which means the village doesn’t get any tax revenue from Brunner.

The ethanol plant pays out more than $1.2 million to local governments each year. (23 percent of that or $271,319 is being held in a stabilization fund to help provide a cushion when the 10-year Empire Zone benefits expire. After that, WNY Energy is expected to pay a smaller tax bill.)

The past few years have been a bonanza for several taxing entities with the ethanol plant. Medina Central School has received $535,623 annually from Western New York Energy, with Orleans County getting $232,310, the Town of Shelby $140,391, and Lee-Whedon Memorial Library $40,882. The Town of Ridgeway even gets $4.57.

The Village of Medina, the one with the ladder fire truck and the police close by, gets nothing.

Brunner has expanded several times on the east side of Bates Road. It’s been a big tax generator for the Town of Ridgeway, the school district and county. But the village gets nothing.

Since the village Fire Department took over as primary ambulance provider for western Orleans in 2006, it has tried to get a $10,000 contribution from Shelby and Ridgeway. They have paid nothing.

Many of the Village Board members who have wrestled with these issues for years are frustrated and angry about the lack of funds trickling into the village coffers. The Orleans Economic Development Agency has pushed to get the village some revenue from these businesses that use village services but are just across the village lines.

The two towns, the county and the school district all agreed to share some of the funds in the future. That deal was struck about three years ago. It hasn’t resulted in any money for the village yet, but it could with the Keppeler site on Route 31A and other projects near the village, if the companies hook into village water and sewer. That provides a window of hope if you’re a village taxpayer.

Village employees are paid a lot
Don Earle, the Seneca Falls town supervisor, talked about his community’s experience with dissolution when he visited Medina on Friday. Earle said the anticipated savings with dissolution were actually much more than advertised.

That was partly because village employees who shifted to the town payroll were paid less. They kept their jobs, but they made less money, which eased some of the pain for taxpayers.

I don’t begrudge anyone a good salary. I wish we had more people making a good dollar around here. It would help the local economy, help the churches, help people afford some of the maintenance projects in these old mansions around here.
But I think the village workers are paid too much in a poor community with such high taxes.

The Empire Center lists the salaries for every state, county, town, village and school district employee. I’m not going to list these salaries, but Medina in 2013 had one employee over $80,000, nine in the $70s, six in the $60s, and 16 in the $50s. I can see why the union and employees have been so active in trying to defeat dissolution.
In 2013, 48 people on the village payroll were paid $2,358,819.

Dissolution would help, but it’s not enough
Village residents can knock about $6 per $1,000 of assessed property off that staggering tax bill if the village dissolves. For a $70,000 house that would be $420 less in taxes.

That may sound like a lot, but even with dissolution the rate would be $48. That is still among the highest in the region and still puts the community at a competitive disadvantage in attracting businesses and residents.

OneMedina wants to dissolve the village and merge towns of Shelby and Ridgeway. A town merger would bring an additional $447,000 in state aid each year. That end result, which would be years in the making, could make the community a little closer to average for tax rate.

I give Medina Mayor Andrew Meier and the OneMedina members credit for forcing this issue. They knew it wouldn’t win them a popularity contest.

Many people have misgivings about the state incentives. I’d like Gov. Cuomo or Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul to stand on Main Street and assure the community the state incentive money will be there for years and years to come.

And I’d like to see them increase the incentive, even if they raised it from 15 to 20 percent. That would be another $180,000 with the village dissolution.

Dissolution Plan doesn’t identify much in efficiency savings
When the Dissolution Committee started meeting to hash out a dissolution plan, I was expecting far more than the $277,000 in operational efficiencies. That is less than 3 percent of the budgets of the two towns and village.

The savings should stand on their own, outside of the state aid, if the community is going to realize a more efficient government. We found out the local governments are already lean. There aren’t extra people on the payroll.

How would towns treat village if dissolution goes down

My big fear with the vote on Tuesday is it will be rejected and the towns, county and state will take that as a sign the village people like things just the way they are.

The county won’t give any more sales tax. The towns will feel more empowered to be stingy with village taxpayers, and the state won’t entertain giving more AIM funding.

The village will continue in its downward spiral. (It wouldn’t get another chance for a dissolution vote for four years.)

Better scenarios?
The village’s total tax levy is $2,738,602 in 2014-15. How could that be reduced if the village stays intact?

Here are some scenarios for cutting taxes if the village decides against dissolution:

The county either offers to take over policing countywide or gives Medina $500,000 more in sales tax (about half of the village police budget). Maybe the county agrees to start smaller, directing $150,000 to help support the Medina police. That would be 1 percent of the sales tax. It should send a similar amount to Albion for its police department and maybe a third of that to help sustain the Holley police.

If the county won’t budge, the villages should consider eliminating their police departments and the community should insist the county step up with more deputies.

The towns of Shelby and Ridgeway each agree to pay at least $25,000 towards the Fire Department ambulance service. The towns follow through with promises of shared services and help plow village streets and better fund the parks program.

Our local state legislators make more state aid for villages their top priority in Albany. They convince the governor and the State Legislature that villages are like mini cities, providing an array of services but facing aging infrastructure, decaying housing stock and a host of other challenges.

The state sees the light and agrees to $100 per capita for villagers, which would be $190 million out of the state budget. That would be about $600,000 more for Medina.

The Keppeler site in Shelby near the village attracts several tenants and they pay a lot in taxes, with the village getting a big chunk of those funds. The EDA also works with the communities to rewrite tax-sharing deals for the ethanol plant, Brunner and others just across the village line, giving Medina a cut of the revenue.

Village employees step forward and offer to take a 5 percent pay cut. That alone will save about $120,000.

The towns and village work together on several community development projects, which could include better gateway entrances to the community, a trail project by Glenwood Lake and other projects that draw more residents to the community and improve the quality of life for those who already live in Medina.

Are any of these scenarios plausible? That will be something for village voters to consider on Tuesday. Will Medina have strong partners in the future at the town, county and state level?

If I was a Medina villager, I would give it one more try. If there are no signs of progress, dissolution would be an issue again in four years.

But if village residents vote on Tuesday to dissolve the village, I wouldn’t blame them.

‘What we would have changed? We would have done it sooner’

Photos by Tom Rivers – Don Earle, town supervisor of Seneca Falls, said dissolution has been a positive for that community. He addressed about 200 people today during a discussion at Medina Theatre.

MEDINA – On Jan. 1, 2012, the Village of Seneca Falls was no more. It dissolved.

Nervous residents who feared the change still had their garbage picked up, water came out of the tap, and police officers and firefighters responded to calls.

“It was just like the year 2000 with the Y2K, remember that?” Seneca Falls Town Supervisor Don Earle told about 200 people in Medina tonight. “Nothing happened.”

Earle was invited to Medina by Mayor Andrew Meier to share Seneca Falls’ experience with dissolution. Seneca Falls is similar in size to Medina, with 6,681 residents compared to about 6,065 in Medina.

Both communities have a strong historical fabric and treasured business districts.
Earle said the Village of Seneca Falls was being crippled with an astronomical tax rate that was chasing out residents. The village officials put off needed maintenance and infrastructure upgrades because of the rising tax burden, Earle said.

Residents still worried about losing the village and the dissolution vote barely passed in Seneca Falls with a 1,198-1,112 vote on March 16, 2010.

A dissolved village isn’t a defeated community. Don Earle said Seneca Falls is a much more vibrant community post-dissolution.

A stronger community has emerged, with dramatically lower taxes for the former village residents, a manageable increase for residents outside the town, and improved overall services in Seneca Falls, Earle told a crowd at Medina Theatre.

He remembers the worry with the changeover, that the community somehow would by stymied with critical services no longer provided.

It was a challenge transitioning the village services to the town, but Earle said he and most residents in Seneca Falls only have one regret in the process.

“What we would have changed?” Earle said. “We would have done it sooner.”

Village residents have seen their tax rate fall from about $17 to about $6 per $1,000 of assessed property with dissolution. The outside village residents were paying $1.86 per $1,000. Now they pay about $5 per $1,000 of assessed property (not including school and county taxes).

Although they pay more in town taxes, Earle said the outside-village residents now have an equal voice in what happens in the former village area.

Most village employees did not lose their jobs. They became town employees, although they were paid at a lower rate. Earle said the village had a higher pay structure than in town.

Seneca Falls formed a town-wide police force and added three officers. Shelby Town Councilman Steve Seitz reiterated his concern that a dissolution plan for Medina calls for adding one full-time police officer despite expanding the coverage area from 3 to 98 square miles.

Steve Seitz asks Don Earle about police services in Seneca Falls.

Seitz doesn’t think the Medina plan is realistic. It identifies $277,000 in operational savings and $541,000 in additional state aid for an overall $818,000 benefit in reduced taxes.

The town leaders also don’t trust the state to come through consistently with the $541,000 in aid for the Medina community.

Earle noted that Seneca Falls has received its promised state aid of $535,000 each of the past three years.

“You can never, ever get a guarantee from the State of New York,” Earle said. “All I can say is we’ve gotten it for three years and there is no indication it will be cut.”

Shelby and Ridgeway town officials have said the $277,000 is too little for combined budgets of about $11 million. That’s less than 3 percent in savings.

In Seneca Falls, the community found more savings than what was projected in the plan. The town found it could streamline operations and was able to reduce a few positions, Earle said.

The Seneca Falls example isn’t the best comparison for the Medina dissolution, said Andina Barone, a public relations consultant for the towns of Ridgeway and Shelby. She noted the Village of Medina is about half in Shelby and half in Ridgeway, making it more challenging for a seamless transition.

Seneca Falls also has a large landfill and revenue from that helps drive down taxes in that community, Barone said.

Earle said villagers in Seneca Falls didn’t get a break in their village taxes from the landfill. Once the village dissolved, they were better able to receive the financial benefit of the landfill, he said.

Even without that landfill money, the village tax rate would have dropped from $16.93 to $9.18 per $1,000, he said.

Medina resident Dick Berry said the towns should provide more services to village residents, who are already paying $1.1 million in taxes to the towns of Shelby and Ridgeway.

Seneca Falls hasn’t lost its heritage because of the dissolution, Earle said. He noted Old Forge also hasn’t lost its identity, even though that Adirondacks community dissolved in the 1930s and now a hamlet in the Town of Webb.

Seneca Falls, especially the villagers, are experiencing immediate tax savings with dissolution. The bigger benefits will come in the years ahead, Earle said.

“The long-term benefits are going to be tremendous,” he said. “You’re operating as one. You’re not competing against each other.”

Earle was asked about shared services talks between the village and town in Seneca Falls. It was a fruitless and frustrating exercise that wasn’t going anywhere.

“People don’t want to give up power,” Earle said. “When they don’t want to give up power, shared services really don’t work.”

Medina Mayor Andrew Meier said shared services haven’t resulted in much progress for nearly three years. He and other village residents noted the village pays $1.1 million in taxes to Ridgeway and Shelby, without getting anywhere close to $1.1 million in services.

Village Trustee Marguerite Sherman said she is optimistic the village and two towns can achieve significant savings with shared services. The two towns are serious in wanting to plow village streets and provide other highway services, which would be a big savings for Medina, perhaps in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Sherman said.

She wants the community to give shared services more time before voting for dissolution.

Shelby Volunteer Fire Company President Gary Lamar states his support for the Medina Fire Department, saying the group provides critical fire and ambulance services in western Orleans County.

Earle said one of the biggest challenges with dissolution was the aging village infrastructure and equipment. The village didn’t have the capital to keep up with roads, sewers, waterlines, 10-wheel trucks and other big ticket items, he said.

The town has made an inventory of infrastructure and equipment and is working to establish a schedule for upgrades.

A dissolution committee in Medina has suggested creating special taxing districts for village debt, a fire district, a town-wide police force for the two towns, an ambulance corporation that would contract with the fire district to continue the existing service, and an LDC (local development corporation) for water and sewer.

Earle said he didn’t like the idea of an LDC, of creating that layer of government.

The other taxing districts aren’t outside the norm in local government, Meier said. He noted the towns using special districts for their numerous water districts, as well as lighting and fire services.

Medina Mayor Andrew Meier

Medina residents will vote on dissolution from noon to 9 p.m. on Tuesday at the Senior Center. Meier said he hopes it’s a first step to reducing government layers and driving down taxes in the community. He would like to then see the two towns work towards a merger.

The village is currently solvent and paying its bills, Meier said in response to a question.

However, the taxes are much higher within village borders, compared to residents who live outside village lines in the towns of Shelby and Ridgeway.

“The problem with the village, by the mere virtue of its existence, is we’re setting our residents up for double taxation,” Meier said. “That dramatically increases taxes for village residents.”