Photos by Tom Rivers – Ridgeway Town Supervisor Brian Napoli talks with reporters after dissolution was defetated on Tuesday. Napoli said the town can find cost savings for the village through shared services

MEDINA – With residents casting a decisive blow against dissolving the village, Medina Mayor Andrew Meier and town leaders from Shelby and Ridgeway say they will work towards cooperation to reduce the costs of government in the community.

Meier pushed dissolution, seeing it as a way for a more efficient government for the Medina area, while also bringing in much-needed state aid.

The dissolution plan was fiercely opposed by the leaders from the two town governments, as well as village employees and many village residents. The referendum – “Shall the Village of Medina, New York be dissolved?” – was defeated, 949-527. By law, the issue can’t be voted on again for at least four more years.

Meier said the village faces the same challenges after the vote as it did to start the day.

“We still have a declining tax base, a shrinking population and climbing costs,” he said shortly after the results were announced. “Our sustainability predicament remains.”

Medina Mayor Andrew Meier said he looks forward to seeing proposals from the two towns on how to reduce government costs in the Medina community.

Ridgeway Town Supervisor Brian Napoli said he wants to have serious talks with the village and Shelby town officials about shared services. He believes that cooperation among the municipalities can reduce taxes for village residents.

“The residents (through this vote) told us they want us to look at shared services,” Napoli said in the Senior Center, where many village and town officials, and other residents were gathered to hear the results of the vote.

David Stalker is a member of the Ridgeway Town Board who lives in the village. He sees the village is struggling and needs some help.

“We’ve been ready and willing to talk,” Stalker said about the Ridgeway officials.

He was among the group that waited for nearly 1,500 ballots to be counted, by far the most of an village vote in at least a generation.

Election Inspector Judy Szulis announced the results at 10:35 p.m. The polls closed at 9 p.m.

Stalker was like many of the residents who worried about the fate of the Fire Department and Police Department if dissolution had passed.

“I like having them and knowing they can be there in 3 minutes,” he said.

That was a common refrain from voters interviewed by the media on Tuesday. Residents said they don’t like their high taxes, but they said they didn’t want to lose a responsive police force and fire department.

“Taxes you can deal with, but the proper time for emergencies can’t be compromised,” said resident Peter Kaiser, 31.

He was one of several residents who wasn’t able to vote because he wasn’t registered. He said he assumed he could vote as a village resident, but he wasn’t recorded as registered by the Orleans County Board of Elections.

Tracy Cody had the same situation. She lives in the village, but unbeknownst to her, she wasn’t registered to vote.

She also owns land outside the village in Ridgeway. She went to the polls on Tuesday, concerned her town taxes would go up if dissolution went through. She also didn’t like the uncertainty with the police and fire department.

She supports the idea of one government for the community, with the two towns merged and a village dissolution to follow. She thinks consolidating the two towns is the first step.

“Combine everything into one,” she said.

It was a busy day for election inspectors with nearly 1,500 people voting at the Senior Center. Election inspector Norma Huth is at left wth inspector Judy Szulis at right.

Mayor Meier and supporters of OneMedina see merger of the two towns and elimination of the village as an ultimate goal for the community, providing a streamlined government, more state aid and a stronger political voice.

OneMedina saw dissolution of the village as a first step, but folding the village services into the towns, different taxing districts and an LDC for sewer services proved confusing to many people.

One woman, a life-long Medina resident at age 74, said there were too many unknowns if dissolution had passed.

“Everything is so unclear to everybody,” said the woman, who declined to give her name. “It’s been back and forth with the facts and there’s been too much fighting.”

Crystal Petry, 22, is a Shelby volunteer firefighter who lives in the village. She voted against dissolution. She said the Medina Fire Department, which includes paid firefighters, is critical to western Orleans County. She also thought it was unfair to residents in Shelby and Ridgeway outside the village who faced tax increases if the referendum had passed.

“There’s other ways of going about doing it,” Petry said. “Give the towns a chance.”

Steve Seitz, a Shelby town councilman, said Shelby welcomes the village officials for ongoing dialogue about sharing services.

“Hopefully we can get back to the table,” Seitz said.

Meier said he was encouraged by the 527 “yes” votes, 36 percent of the total. The 527 tops the number of people who voted in the last village election. Only about 400 voted last March.

He said dissolution could loom again because of the difficult situation the village faces. It has limited options for boosting revenue to pay for the services the community values so much. Meier said the village shouldn’t just raise property taxes. The $54 rate per $1,000 of assessed property (village, town, county and school taxes) is one of the highest in the state.

Election inspectors Mary Ann Arder, left, and Norma Huth count ballots. It took about an hour and half to record all of the votes.

Residents and businesses can save significant money in taxes just by moving outside the village and avoiding the village’s $16.44 tax rate. Dissolution would have chopped the overall rate by about $6 per $1,000, saving $420 for a village property owner with a house assessed at $70,000.

“Sometimes it takes time for people to warm up to this kind of transformational change,” Meier said. “We voted tonight. I can’t say if this will be the last vote on the issue. This is a conversation that will continue for years to come.”

He noted a vote to abolish the village court failed in its first vote but sailed through the second time in 2010.

Village Trustee Mark Irwin supported dissolution and was disappointed to see it be rejected. He noted a strong push from the dissolution foes – “They preyed on peoples’ misunderstanding.”

A dissolution plan would have preserved existing village services, realized $277,000 in efficiency saving and $541,000 in additional state aid.

“Right now the ball is in the towns’ court,” Irwin said.

Meier said he looks forward to seeing the ideas and plans from the two towns.

“I think we really need to figure out what the towns’ proposal are,” he said. “They have said, ‘There are better ways, there are better ways.’ All eyes are on them to follow through with what they said.”

The 1,476 who went to the polls on Tuesday is about half of the people who were eligible to vote. The village has 6,065 residents, according to the 2010 Census. Judy Szulis, an election inspector, was pleased by the big turnout.

“We’ve had people come out who had never voted before in a village election,” Szulis said. “There have been a lot of new faces in here today, which is a good thing.”

‘Dissolution has divided friends, neighbors and families. This cannot go on.’ – Ridgeway Town Supervisor Brian Napoli

Photos by Tom Rivers – Shelby Town Supervisor Skip Draper, right, responds to a question about village dissolution. He is joined by Councilman Dale Stalker during a meeting at the Medina High School Auditorium attended by more than 300 people.

MEDINA – A big crowd of about 300 people attended a public meeting by the Town Boards in Shelby and Ridgeway on Wednesday night. The town officials stated their strong opposition to the dissolution of the Village of Medina.

Villagers shouldn’t expect the towns to pick up the level of services currently provided in the village, officials from both towns said.

Medina Mayor Andrew Meier and other supporters of the dissolution plan see it as a restructuring of services that eases the tax burden on village residents, shifts some costs to the towns and brings in much-needed state aid.

But Jeff Toussaint, Ridgeway town councilman, called it a divisive effort that will only push costs onto the towns. He said the plan has residents outside the village fretting about “unbearable tax hikes.”

“The dissolution plan promoted by One Medina will not unite Medina but ruin it,” Toussaint said.

Ridgeway Town Board members David Stalker, right, and Paul Blajszczak both voiced their opposition to village dissolution. Stalker lives in the village and he said he enjoys the heightened services which come at a higher cost.

Village residents will vote on dissolution from noon to 9 p.m. on Jan. 20 at the Senior Center.

Residents won’t be voting on a specific dissolution plan. They will decide whether or not the village government will continue.

Shelby Town Supervisor Skip Draper and Ridgeway Town Supervisor Brian Napoli both said the dissolution plan doesn’t save nearly enough money to justify eliminating the village government and creating new layers of government bureaucracy, including special districts, a local development corporation and additional burdens on the two towns.

The plan identifies $277,000 in cost savings and $541,000 in additional state aid for $818,000 in overall benefit. (Click here to see the dissolution plan.)

But with combined budgets of more than $10 million, the $277,000 was called a small amount in operational savings.

“I don’t trust the math,” Draper said. “It’s very clear these are all estimates.”

Draper said he is dubious there would be any savings at all because the plan only calls for adding one full-time position to the police department, which would go from covering the village to both towns, or from 3 square miles to 98. If four police officers were needed that would offset the $277,000 in identified cost savings.

Gary Lamar, president of the Shelby Volunteer Fire Company, said the Medina Fire Department is critical to ambulance and fire service for Western Orleans County. He doesn’t want to see the Medina Fire Department disrupted through dissolution.

The town officials said they want to recommit to shared service discussions. Draper said the communities have established a record of cooperation before through courts and assessing services. He sees benefits to the village if the towns took over all plowing and street maintenance. However, if villagers want sidewalk plowing, they could pay for that and other “enhanced services,” Draper said.

The Shelby town supervisor sees the two towns providing “baseline services,” with village residents paying for additional services such as police.

Meier has said shared services don’t do enough to ease the significant tax strain on village residents. Villagers pay a combined tax rate of $54 per $1,000 of assessed property. Moving outside the village can knock about $12 off that combined tax rate, a significant disparity and major disincentive to invest in the village, the mayor has said.

The village tax rate would drop about $6, according to the dissolution plan. Ridgeway residents outside the village in 2013 paid a $6.71 rate for town, lighting and fire protection. That would rise 46 percent to $9.83 if the village dissolves and services are picked up according to the plan.

Shelby residents would see a 10 percent increase with dissolution with the 2013 rate for outside-village residents going from $8.36 per $1,000 of assessed property to $9.17. That would raise taxes for a $70,000 home from $585 to $642.

But the town officials don’t buy the numbers, particularly with the costs for police.

Paul Hendel served as moderator for the meeting at Medina High School.

Shelby Town Councilman Steve Seitz said the plan wasn’t well thought out and didn’t include input from the town officials. He told the village officials they shouldn’t quit on the village. He urged them to come back to the table and find more ways to share services and cooperate.

Ridgeway Town Councilman Paul Blajszczak described the dissolution plan as “radical and premature.”

He urged village residents “to elect candidates interested in productive collaboration.”

The town officials were asked to be specific in how the taxes could be cut for village residents. Shared services was a refrain among the two towns.

Napoli, the Ridgeway supervisor, said the dissolution push has stirred the passions of the community – for the wrong reasons.

“Dissolution has divided friends, neighbors and families,” Napoli said. “This cannot go on.”

Ridgeway Town Supervisor Brian Napoli speaks against dissolution, saying the community should preserve the village. Jeff Toussaint is at right.

Ed Weider is one the proponents of “One Medina,” an effort that seeks to dissolve the village and merge the two towns. He spoke after several residents and town officials spoke about the beautiful downtown and historic flavor of the community.

Weider said there is another part of Medina, and it is growing: decay. He travels the village in a motorized wheelchair. He sees lots of vacant houses and properties being neglected.

Dissolving the village and merging the towns would lower government costs and bring in much needed state aid, helping to pay for services and lower residents’ tax bills, Weider said.

“i don’t think we can afford to maintain the status quo,” Weider said.

Weider praised the two town boards for their presentation on Wednesday night. The boards have proven they work well together and are willing to face community challenges. Weider urged them to support the village dissolution, to bring a unified and streamlined voice to local government.

Ed Weider addresses the two town boards before about 300 people on Wednesday night. Owen Toale is at right, holding the microphone for Weider.

The town officials were asked if they had been approached about a merger of the two towns. They said they hadn’t. Blajszczak said they would have to consider the issue if there was a citizen petition.

But he doubted there would be significant savings because there would still be the same amount of work with water, sewer, street maintenance and plowing, and other services.

“Would a merger save money?” Blajszczak said. “That’s an assumption.”

Some of the residents asked the town officials what the village residents get for the $1.1 million villagers pay to the two towns annually. Draper noted assessing and court for sure.

“The amount of service from the town is minimal at best,” resident Dick Berry responded to Draper.

Berry said he wished more of his local taxes could be directed to the village, which is doing the bulk of the work.

“There has to be a better way,” Berry said.

The town officials were also urged to press for more sales tax revenue from the county and to demand more municipal state aid from New York.

Proponents of dissolution will have a public meeting on Friday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Medina Theatre. That meeting will include Don Earle, Seneca Falls town supervisor. He will share his community’s experience with dissolution, discussing impacts on taxes and services, and the community’s reaction to the changes.