Important village water meeting June 29 at high school

by Dan McClelland

The public meeting unhappy and concerned water customers have been waiting for since a large public village meeting over a month ago has been called for tomorrow, Thursday, June 29.

Mayor Paul Maroun announced Monday that Senator Dan Stec and Assemblyman Billy Jones were both available to attend the important session to listen to residents’ concerns. The mayor promised upset water customers at his board’s May meeting he’d bring all state parties together soon to publicly discuss the various problems with the village’s current water system- as soon as the two state lawmakers were free.

Both have been in Albany in past weeks as the state legislature is still in session.

Senator Stec and Assemblyman Jones both informed him in recent days the June 29 meeting would fit into their schedules.

The session will begin at 5:30p.m. in the high school auditorium which has seating to accompany over 200 and a stage for the presenters that evening.

Mr. Maroun has also encouraged the state department of health and environmental conservation to send their representatives to the meeting to share the state and legal perspectives on the brown water containing high concentrations of iron from the wells at Pitchfork Pond and the toxin-containing water from the Little Simond source. Also expected to attend are the village engineers from C2AE of Canton that guided the well project.

50th annual Tupper Lake Arts Show begins today at Tupper Arts

Beginning today Tupper Arts on Park Street will host the 50th annual Tupper Lake Arts Show- featuring some of the best paintings, photographs and ceramics produced by local and area artists.

It’s a home-grown show with deeps roots here that has intrigued gallery-goers for decades. For many years the event was held at the local library before Tupper Arts rejuvenated it.

The event runs through Independence Day and those who appreciate great art in a wide cross-section of artistic media- from wood-working to textiles to sculptures to painting should plan to visit the Tupper Arts gallery Wednesdays through Sundays from 11a.m. to 5p.m.

Most everything will be for sale, organizers say. Admission is free.

Mayoral updates on water issue

In response to calls at the recent village board meeting from members of the new residents’ water group on Facebook, Mayor Paul Maroun reports this week that Senator Dan Stec and Assemblyman Billy Jones have both been invited for a Tupper Lake meeting to delve more deeply into this issue. A response from the two state lawmakers is expected soon so a meeting date can be finalized.

The mayor also reports that the state Health Department officials the village are working with are hopeful to start treating the well water with a new phosphorous product soon to stem the iron coloring.

Former Oval Wood Factory: “It’s a go!”

by Dan McClelland

“It’s a go!” was the word from Joe Gehm, the lead developer in the former Oval Wood Dish Factory housing project this past week.

The developers were waiting for a package of state tax credits to help them build the estimated $35 million apartment complex on Demars Blvd. which will include a new production brewery by Joe Hockey and Mark Jessie of Raquette River Brewing.

Mayor Paul Maroun, who has been working with Mr. Gehm and his partners on the apartment complex project in recent years, announced the good news at the May board meeting.

He read a letter from Commissioner Ruth Anne Visnauskas of the Homes and Community Renewal Agency of New York that approved the developers’ application submitted last fall.

“HCR has approved awards of up to $1.216 million of Low-Income Tax Credit, $500,000 of NYS Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, $5.2 million of New York State Housing Trust Fund, $1.4 million of Federal Housing Trust Fund, $5 million of Housing Development Fund, $2.133 million of NYS Home funds and $500,000 of Community Investment Fund to assist in the development of 80 affordable residential units.”

The state grant and credits are part of New York “Workforce Housing” initiative, directed by HCR.

The developers had applied for many of those same funds a year ago, but didn’t win the funds. The new award was made by the state in late April.

Mr. Gehm said they are currently working on completing all of their construction documents. “We’re hoping to have a closing date on construction financing by the end of the year.”

“This is our main project with the 80 apartment units and the Raquette River Brewery.”

Mr. Gehm and his partners are also working on a second project on the Fletcher family property behind the former Oval Wood Dish complex.

Mr. Gehm hopes for a ground-breaking on the first phase early in 2024.

A 12-month to 14-month construction period is anticipated for occupancy by its new tenants in 2025.

As part of the funding package to help finance the project, at the May meeting Mayor Maroun announced that the Village of Tupper Lake was awarded $1.6 million for phase 1 of the project, which involves the redevelopment of 126,000 square feet of vacant former industrial space in nine connected buildings- a combination of workforce housing, market-rate housing and various types of commercial space, including the production brewery.

He said it was part of the Restore New York Communities Initiative.

He said the village grant is in addition to $32 million in private funds, low-interest loans and the state tax credit package.

The tax credits approved by Governor Kathy Hochul will come, he said, in the amount of $1.75 million per year for ten years. The balance of the state funding package, he noted, comes in very low-interest loans.

He called it wonderful news for the community, as a partial remedy to Tupper Lake’s tight housing market where it’s very difficult for people to find apartments and houses, so they can move here and fill currently unfilled job positions- many of them in the construction trade and in direct care at Sunmount.

Three meaningful but enjoyable events set Saturday

by Dan McClelland

Three meaningful but potentially fun events are on tap this coming Saturday, as Tupper Lake moves into its early summer agenda.

The Jamie Rose Power Walk will be again staged Saturday where friends and family members of the late Jamie Rose Martin will again do their best to “break the silence of domestic violence.”

The event is a tribute to Jamie, who was murdered by a former domestic partner a half dozen or so years ago. It’s a call from the grave by the young mother for the community to do whatever it can to stop the scourge of domestic violence, which comes in many forms.

The event will be between 11a.m. and 2p.m. at the Tupper Lake Municipal Park Rotary Pavilion.

The registration cost includes a souvenir shirt, a swag bag and a donation to the Jamie Rose stop domestic violence fund.

To register go to jamierosepowerwalk.racewire.com.

There promises to be plenty of raffles, good music and games.

More details can be found in our “Events Calendar,” sponsored by the Merrill J. Thomas/ The Gillis Team, which appears in this issue for the first time this summer season.

After the power walk, the attention will turn to the VFW Post No. 3120 at 196 Park Street where the local veterans are staging what they are calling “a triple toss fundraiser” for the Veterans Memorial Park in the center of our uptown business district on Park Street.

Monies raised will help the local veteran organizers buy an Amish shed for storage there, and to update the landscaping and sprinklers there, which were originally donated by the Brainard Beausoleil family over a decade ago.

There’ll be plenty of picnic-style goodies served at the post from 3p.m. to whenever the fun is done.

The triple toss will be comprised of three games- corn hole, shuffle board and darts. Teams will consist of two players and their will be first, second and third prizes for the best shooters and tossers.

Saturday here will also be the start of Tupper Arts’ speaker series featuring an afternoon with Dr. William Tortolano, beginning at 2p.m.

The learned speaker’s talk will be on the Group of Seven, an early 20th century group of influential Canadian painters. It’s free but donations are always welcome to support the arts organization’s many events throughout the year. The Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts is the co-sponsor of the lecture.

On Friday evening the weekly Friday night stargazing begins for the season at the Adirondack Sky Center and Observatory at 178 Big Wolf Road. It’s a free laser guided tour of the heavens. Call (518) 359-3538 for details.

Memorial Day observance planned Monday

It’s the Adirondack Leatherneck Marine Corp League’s turn to host the Memorial Day service at the Veterans’ Park on Park Street Monday at 11a.m.

The two veterans’ events here each year always feature performances by both the Tupper Lake High School Band, under the direction of Laura Davison, and the Tupper Lake Honor Guard, led by Mike Larabie.

This year’s guest speaker will be Tupper Lake Town Supervisor Rickey Dattola.

Wreaths will be laid at the monument of those veterans who have passed. All local organizations are welcome to join and lay a wreath.

Poppies are being given out this week at Saturday’s “Party on Park” and at the two local supermarkets. Donations to the local poppy fund go to help local veterans.

Two fun events for residents, visitors Saturday: Mud Ball and Tupper Lake Adult Prom

by Dan McClelland

Tupper Lake adults have two events in the community to enjoy this Saturday evening.

Tupper Arts is thanking its many supporters here with the Return of the Mud Ball- a fun event that has drawn nice-sized crowds in the years it has been held here.

It’s the popular arts group’s way of encouraging its patrons and many friends to shake off the winter blues and come out and dance.

This year’s Mud Ball will again be held at Raquette River Brewing.

The very dance-able tunes of the 1970s and 1980s will be supplied in robust fashion by the talented six musicians of Tupper Lake’s “Night School.” So wear your comfortable, dancing shoes!

The admission, as in the past, is free and the first drink of the evening is on Tupper Arts.

The evening will also feature a raffle and silent auction, with proceeds to benefit Tupper Arts and all its programs throughout the year.

Mud Ball happens Saturday from 5p.m. to 8p.m. For information about it or any of the many classes, performances and exhibits sponsored by Tupper Arts, visit TupperArts.org.

A new event that same evening is the Town of Tupper Lake Recreation/Youth Activities Department’s adult prom, entitled “What’s My Age Again?”

For those here with fond memories of their high school prom and maybe their first official date, it’s sort of a trip back in time to a 90s-themed prom. The adult prom (18 years and older) doesn’t begin until 7p.m.- so there’s enough time to take in both events that evening. The prom runs to 10p.m.

The Adult Prom will be held at the Tupper Lake Country Club restaurant, under the operation this year of Scott Bell and his staff. Scott’s calling his new place “The Clubhouse.”

There will be appetizers and a cash bar, and music will be served up by DJ Max Nason of Saranac Lake.

Tickets have been selling well, reports Recreation Director Laura LaBarge, but people shouldn’t delay as only 200 tickets are available. The $30 per person tickets may be purchased by using the scan code shown on the town department’s advertisement in this week’s paper.

The idea for new adult prom event came from the town’s new recreation director. Laura explains that she loved the proms when she was in high school and attended every one in your years at Tupper High.

“Every once in a while I’ll be out somewhere in the community, and someone will tell me: ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have a prom for adults here?’”

Adult prom have been popular in other communities, she noted last week.

Laura said she’s hoping people will take in both events that evening.

All proceeds from Tupper Lake’s first adult prom will go to the town’s youth programs, which include youth sports and the summer day camp, to name just two.

She said she is hoping to create several “signature drinks” at Scott’s new bar- “perhaps with funny names to mark what she hopes is the evening’s nostalgia.

To help with the fundraising there will be a
Chinese auction for ten or so gift baskets- full of all sorts of goodies- that will be raffled off and awarded. A very nice, very expensive Yetsi cooler will also be given to some lucky ticket-holder that evening in a separate drawing.

As the popularity of the town’s various youth programs increases- with growing numbers- so go the costs, and hence the reason for this new event, explains Mrs. LaBarge.

To add a little silliness to Saturday’s event, the recreation director has arranged to have a do it yourself photo booth on hand to snap posed photos of prom-goers and their friends.

Many of the participants will be sporting the tradition dress finery of proms, while others many take a less formal approach, in keeping with Tupper Lake custom.

But the aim, according to Mrs. LaBarge, is to return that evening to the 1990s and its trademark music, dust off their old prom duds, and relive some old memories with friends.

New budget doesn’t fund three police positions, but produces tax rate like two years ago

by Dan McClelland

The tax rate that Tupper Lake village taxpayers are looking at when they get their tax bills next month is about the same one they were looking at this time two years ago.

That’s because the board, at various workshops in recent weeks cut about $190,000 in projected spending for next year.

A new smaller budget was adopted by the village board at a special meeting last Monday.

In the proposed budget the board has been reviewing in recent weeks, total spending for next year was forecast at $3.395 million- which was a spending decrease over the current year of 0.17% or $5,841.

After an expected fund balance of $100,000 and projected revenues in the new village year beginning in June of $1.049 million, a tax levy (amount paid by village taxpayers collectively) of $2.346 million was in prospect. That levy projected was up by 4.57% or $49,189 over the village’s allowable state tax cap of $2.296 million.

In the proposed budget before the cuts in recent weeks a tax rate of $16.459 per $1,000 of assessed valuation of property was in view.

Since early April when the draft budget was released to the board by Treasurer Mary Casagrain there have been cuts- the most significant of them in the $1.3 million proposed budget of the Tupper Lake Village Police Department.

In the proposed budget of Chief Eric Proulx were $647,639 in salaries for the chief, three sergeants and four uniformed officers. Also included were about $155,000 in salaries for replacements for Officer Mike Vaillancourt, who retired this year and Officers Brandon Duchaine and Kris Clark, who resigned their positions this past year.

Because the department can’t find officers to replace them, the village leaders removed $190,100 from the final budget, which included the $154,500 in salaries, $1,600 in the clothing allowances for the three, and $34,000 for social security payments and hospital and medical benefits for those positions.

Another major adjustment- this time on the revenue side of the plan- was an increase of $20,000 in new revenue from the increased price of garbage stickers in the new year (See related story this week).

So in the final plan total spending that funds the police, fire, public works and office departments in the village’s general fund spending was cut to $3.2 million- down by 5.75% or $195,941. It produced a new tax levy of $2.136 million which is under the allowable state tax cap by 4.79% or by $160,919.

The final budget forecasts a tax rate of $14.98 per $1,000- down by 79 cents per $1,000 below the current tax rate and only a penny per $1,000 assessed valuation over the rate in 2021-22 budget two years ago.

At a special meeting last Monday, the board began by rescinding the motion it made in recent weeks and dispensed with the local law which would have permitted it to override the state-mandated tax cap.

“No matter what we do with the budget tonight, we are now under the tax cap, so we need to rescind the tax cap override we passed earlier,” Mayor Paul Maroun said calling for a motion to rescind it.

“We do it every year once we know we’re under the cap!”

Trustees Eric Shaheen and David Maroun made that motion and it passed unanimously.

At one point in the meeting the board adjourned briefly to executive session to consider a budget-related personnel matter.

In advance of going into private deliberations, Trustee Eric Shaheen said the main reason the budget was decreasing and would be under the tax cap is that the three vacant police positions were not included in the budget spending forecast.

“If there were police officers we could hire, we’d be in a different situation right now. If we could have filled those positions, it wouldn’t have been an easy budget year. We would have been well over the tax cap!” Mr. Shaheen stressed.

“Following up on what Eric said, it’s not our fault” we couldn’t find police officer candidates to fill those positions, stated Mayor Maroun. “We tried to find candidates to hire.”

Responding to some of the comments he’s read on social meeting, Trustee Shaheen stated: “We did not choose to do 12-hour shifts” and reduce police coverage here to one shift per day. “There is no one out there to hire...nobody.”

He said when the New York State Police can’t hire enough troopers, the state prison system cannot hire enough correctional officers, “it’s 100% out of the village board’s control” to find police officers.

“We can’t pull people out of the air!”

The Free Press publisher asked the board about its canvassing and recruitment efforts around the state and region, other than just canvassing off county civil service roles.

“The chief did,” Mayor Maroun assured him. Chief Proulx apparently made many calls to other departments around the state looking for officers to hire here.

“Look at corrections,” noted Trustee “Haji” Maroun, himself a state correctional officer. “They got rid of the test- and I don’t know how they did it with civil service rules. But it’s application-only now when people apply to be correctional officers.”

Mr. Shaheen said the state police have also dramatically lessened their once strict hiring requirements. “The state police cannot find people to become troopers!”

Mr. Shaheen claimed that New York State’s poorly thought out bail reform laws introduced by former Governor Cuomo is one of the roots of the problems that young people don’t want to become police officers today. “It has crucified police officers in this state. No one wants to become a police officer. Until bail reform is changed, you won’t see a difference!” he insisted.

Trustee Leon LeBlanc made it very clear that evening that he didn’t like the decision the board made to not fund those three police positions this year. “We made it very clear to Eric (Chief Proulx) that if he comes up with someone or several people to hire six months from now, we’ll find the money some where to hire them!”

“Yes, we will,” asserted Trustee Shaheen.

“The majority of the problem with crime” in this town and in this state is the bail reform laws. “You can have 150 police officers in your town but there will still be crime, because for law-breakers there are no repercussions for any crime you do now!”

“Criminals now get arrested and then released on their own recognizance” to appear in court months later, Trustee Shaheen asserted.

“Most times no one in this state goes to jail now,” added Trustee Maroun.

“Dust Rings in Space” lecture Thursday

The Adirondack Sky Center & Observatory continues the free Live Virtual Lectures on Thursday May 4th at 7 p.m. with "Dust Rings in Space" presented by Dr. Josh Thomas.

James Webb Space Telescope has captured an amazing set of ring-like features around a pair of stars called WR 140. These rings are the result of complex interactions between winds in the binary (pair) of stars. Despite some headlines, astronomers were not baffled by these rings. Some of the basic measurements about the nature of the system and how the rings formed will be presented in this exciting but windy talk.

Join Dr. Thomas for this free zoom lecture on May 4th at 7pm. Josh is an Associate Professor of Physics and the Director of the Reynolds Observatory at Clarkson University, as well as a member of the Adirondack Sky Center & Observatory board.

To register for this free zoom event, go to the Adirondack Sky Center.org/events or our facebook page.

The Adirondack Sky Center inspires people to discover and explore the “Wilderness Above” through curiosity, observation and scientific investigation. All previous lectures have been recorded and available for viewing on the Adirondack Sky Center & Observatory YouTube channel.

To learn more, visit adirondackskycenter.org info@adirondackskycenter.org or call (518) 359-3538.

“Party on Park” is on, but food, beverage mobile vendors out

by Dan McClelland

“Party on Park” is still on for the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, but there’s a new condition.

In its final approval of the street-closing of the two blocks of the Park Street business district Monday night, the village board, at the insistence of Trustee Eric Shaheen, voted to not permit mobile food or drink vendors to participate.

The street closing still awaits approval from the Watertown office of the state Department of Transportation.

Mr. Shaheen first raised his concern about including the mobile food units in the coming event and the harm they could do to the actual restaurants and eateries in the uptown business district when the board met to continue work on the new budget Thursday.

Following the discussion that evening Mayor Paul Maroun said he talked with Dan McClelland and Josh Mclean about the food vendor condition. Mr. McClelland, as acting chamber of commerce president and retailers Josh Mclean and Garrett Kopp pitched the “Party on Park” revival plan at the regular April board meeting. The mayor said he also spoke with Tupper Arts President Sue Delehanty, who also appeared that night to back the event.

Mr. Maroun said Monday the event organizers said they could accept the board condition.

Mr. Shaheen asked Monday if the board could put his condition into a formal board motion and his colleagues agreed.

Trustee Leon LeBlanc brought the motion, noting that only that actual businesses on the street that sell food could sell it.

“But if someone wants to bring some beer-testing thing to the event, that’s fine,” he added to his motion.

“Why is that?” Trustee David “Haji” Maroun asked. “It would be a booth.” He noted that Stewart’s Shop in the uptown business district sells beer, asking why it should have competition from a beer vendor.

At the past two “Party on Park” events Raquette River Brewing has brought samples of its beer to give away.

“I’m talking about food, Haji,” Mr. LeBlanc stated. “I want the people who come to the event to go into the restaurants to eat. I don’t want food vendors on the street!”

Mr. Maroun wondered if organizers had requested an exception to the town’s open container ordinance, as Tupper Brewing had done when it hosted events on Cliff Ave. in past years.

Mr. LeBlanc said that was not part of the request by the retailers to the board.

“So what kind of vendors” do you want to permit to operate on the street, the mayor asked them that evening.

“No food or beverage vendors,” Trustee Shaheen suggested.

“Well, what about a brick and mortar business here like Raquette River Brewing that has a vendor cart?” the mayor asked his board members.

“If they sell food, then no,” Trustee LeBlanc told the mayor.

“The visitors can’t be drinking alcohol on the streets anyways. That’s a local law,” Trustee Jason McClain told his colleagues.

Trustee David Maroun suggested that Well Dressed Food, which sells Raquette River products in its restaurant, could sell that beer there. The local restaurant features sidewalk tables all summer, and it could be served there.

Trying to gauge the board sentiment Mayor Maroun wondered if Annie Eldred, who owns Cabin Fever Floral could bring a mobile flower cart to the event and the board members felt she could, since she operates at brick and mortar business here.

“So it’s just food and beverages” we’re not allowing? The mayor asked. “I just want to make sure.”

The board members said they were the two items that shouldn’t be sold by a mobile vendor, out of consideration for the restaurants on the street.

“That was the big gripe last year,” Trustee Shaheen reminded them.

Former and convicted drug dealer warns: Drugs are killing Tupper Lake

Editor’s note: the following letter is an open letter to local, county, state and federal lawmakers as a plea for help for our community in light of what many know is a huge drug problem here. The letter was written by Tupper Lake’s Michael Delair, an admitted and convicted drug dealer and recovered drug user. In our opinion it is perhaps the most courageous statement we’ve ever been asked to publish in our nearly 50 years here.

Dear all local, county, state and federal elected leaders:

I live in Tupper Lake I am writing you in regards to the epidemic of drugs that has taken over our community and the necessity to help adequately fund our village police department, rid our town of drugs and crime and most importantly save lives.

First off let me tell you about myself. I am 49 years of age, and led a life of drugs, crime, multiple incarcerations and overdoses. It was a life I never thought I could escape from or give up. I look back now and can only imagine how many nights my mother waited up for me- just to know I was okay , not in jail or worse, dead!

Faced with the grim alternatives, my mother, of course, preferred I was in jail and alive than the alternatives of still surviving on the streets or dead. -And believe me! My life on the street was simply survival.

At the age of 18 I started smoking pot . By the age of 20 I learned how lucrative selling drugs was. By the time I was 22 years of age, I sold half the North Country drugs- and had users in Tupper lake, Saranac Lake, Lake Placid, Newcomb and Long Lake. Fifty percent of the pot that was around probably came from my hands in those years.

At 23 years of age I got into cocaine. I not only abused the drug but got involved heavily with the distribution of $15,000 worth of it through my hands weekly.

In my yard was a four wheeler, a wave runner, a snowmobile, a truck and a car. I had a top of the line sound system electronics in my house and vehicles. You name it, I had it.

But I had no visible means of income. Why didn’t someone in law enforcement notice?

My first bust was in 2005. It involved myself and several other locals. I was charged for felony possession of marijuana as I had been out of cocaine that week as my dealer was in jail. I did 18 months in county jail and spent five years on felony probation “for the weed.”

After that I got into heroine. I was making just under $15,000 every couple weeks give or take, selling it and with what went up my nose. My habit cost me roughly $75,000 (street value) through the course of a year. Looking back, it was pretty sad!

At 39 years of age I was caught in the largest bust in Franklin county involving 36 people- 27 of whom were released to probation. I received a sentence of four years in state prison. Luckily I did only 18 months as I went through the shock program and successfully completed it.

I was only home four weeks on parole and already had already accumulated 30 bundles of heroine while living in a shed on my mother’s property.

After failing a couple drug screenings I finally got my life together as I knew I was looking at ten years in jail on my next bid.

As a friend described the drug trade just about a month ago: “cash is king, baby”.

The hypocrisy in that is as of March 2 he is incarcerated, leaving his wife and children behind and alone.

I no longer live that life! I am a better person for doing so and see things in a much different way!

I have a son, his wife and two beautiful grand daughters and two grand sons. I have a girlfriend who I love with two sons, and a very caring, loving and supportive mother!

Today I choose them and put them before drugs. My past would say differently but my past can’t define who I am today.

What makes me different today, you may ask? Well, I’m doing the unthinkable. Just a short time ago my friend passed away due to an overdose here in our home town, leaving his family, friends, and two children behind.

We drifted apart a few years back. But he and many more friends who I care for are still involved in drugs, so I have to love them from a distance. In doing so in the past seven years I have lost 16 friends to drug overdoes.

This year, hopefully with the help of local, state and regional lawmakers, my goal is to eradicate that problem!

When my friend was left dead on the frozen ground this winter, I lost it! I lost hope in humanity, I lost control, I was filled with sadness and anger and tired of watching my friends die.

I made a promise to someone years ago to rid this town of the poison which killed a friend. But I failed miserably. More friends died, and more shame and guilt have filled my heart. Well, I made that same promise this time, and don’t intend to fail. I have taken action to find my friend’s killer and stop the influx of drugs to our community.

How, you may ask? That’s where the unthinkable comes in. Myself and my girlfriend and a few anonymous others started driving around at night and watching those individuals involved in drugs. We’ve been writing down license plates, talking via texts to addicts and dealers alike.

Our aim is to gain as much information as we can. It got expensive so we started a Go-fund Me to help cover the cost of our gas. I was ridiculed, made fun of, and told I was untrustworthy.

Slowly the fund grew to around $400 and after a few hateful comments we decided to give all funds raised to my friend’s family for a headstone for my friend, Paul. With the money we were raising we also started an account for his two children which at this point is remarkably at nearly $4,000.

I’ve harassed people through Facebook, showing texts of dealers’ dirty deeds, pics of meth, and anything else that implicates their involvement, knowing it would get back to them.

Again, I was ridiculed, harassed and even threatened to the point my own mother deleted me from Facebook as she feared the safety of me and my family and the loss of my sanity. Many friends, all good-natured and well-intentioned people, have said I am wasting my time, loosing my grip on reality and are concerned for me both physically and mentally.

I have been asked: “why am I doing this?” My reply to them is simply: “why are you doing nothing?”

Meth and heroin run rampant in our streets! Everyone complains, but do nothing. I’m not going to continue to do nothing! If I am hurt because of my actions, I would only hope it would shed more light on the situation at hand and if I die, I hope I am remembered for what I am doing, and not for what I have done in my past.

If honoring my many dead friends is not honorable than what is honor? I can only hope that through the information I have obtained it leads to the arrest of my friend’s killer, as no justice has been served for the other 15 friends I’ve lost over the past several years. That is my hope; this is my wish!

It is time for change and over the past month those changes have been happening. People have read my posts and people have started to reach out to me and confide in me about activities in their neighborhoods- sending photos and tips etc. to me.

Others have gone as far as creating a website to expose such things, some of which I don’t condone. But to be honest they are getting their points across and if hurting some folks’ feelings happens, well consider the feelings of all the families who have lost there children here.

People are tired of it- “lots of people are- and they are fighting back. We are not vigilantes but people using the power of our voice to make a change and maybe one day go back to living like we used to for decades here.

Our town is horribly different now- from the innocent place it was years ago. Who doesn’t lock their door now? Who isn’t afraid that their kid may go to the ball park and fall on a needle . We are not the Tupper Lake we used to be, yet we promote how peaceful we are. Tupper Lake is now a community plagued with death of our young adults, addiction and crime.

Are people aware are crime rate has nearly tripled in the course of the last two years- most of it drug-related crime. Why is that? Because the state’s bail reform is not working the way you think it should. Our crime rate has tripled because the same individuals who are apprehended and arrested are released and back on the street before the ink dries on the paper of their arrest. Once out they are back committing more crimes.

While much of this is my opinion, if you look at the local police blotter it’s the same several individuals arrested and released, but not jailed, over and over again! The bail system is broken in New York State.

Squatters illegally staying in local apartments and houses in Tupper Lake was unheard of a few years ago. Now it’s commonplace...people moving into someone’s residence because it’s empty and our laws say we can’t just tell them to get out. It’s a complete and utter atrocity.

To all the elected leaders of our town, our county and our state, I simply ask this:

Will you fix our laws? Will you push to seek justice for those lost to the poisons being pushed in our community? Will you find funding for our local police department so they aren’t done work at 7p.m. when all the fun begins? -Or maybe situate a treatment facility right here where drug users and addicts can go to receive Narcan and mental health counseling?

To my community, I say, it is time to stop treating what’s going on here as a dirty secret. It is time to take our town back with or without our governments’ help! If you see something, say something. It’s that simple! You can remain anonymous but what you should not do is stay silent because before long the criminals will be running our town if we do not take action now!

Last but not least, a few comments to my fellow addicts:

I was once you and still am! I have anxiety and mental health issues persist with me to this day!

I not only feel your pain, your shame and your guilt but truly understand the grip of addiction as it haunts me to this day. I routinely have vivid dreams of smoking crack , nodding out, finding my dead friend and hearing his bones crack as I lifted him dead off the floor.

But some how in some way I finally just had enough and gave it all up. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think about it almost daily as I to want to numb the pain and quiet that little voice in my head that says “I’ll never be anything more than what I am- a junkie, a depressed and almost insane man of 50 years who sometimes thinks death would be easier than to go on living.

My critics may think I have no compassion. They may think of me as a bully and a bad guy and I’m okay with that. Why? Because I live with it. I hear all their hateful comments directed at me. And they combine on top of all the nasty things my own mind says to me on a daily basis. But I’m okay with it because I have changed and regardless of how low I feel sometimes, every day I rise and I put one foot in front of the other each and continue to fight for my sobriety.

It’s a challenge ten times harder than how I chased the drugs all those years. This is not an easy task by any means. I am no better than any of you and hate that some of you feel that way but so be it. If you ask me for help I will do whatever I can to help you- whether it just my ear to listen to you or the offer of some advice.

I pointed out to a few individuals I hope I’m not looked at as a bully to addicts. I’m the exact opposite. I care about all of you! But some of the things people have written about me on social media post, criticizing my motives and my character, just shows how truly horrible the disease of addiction is! It’s cunning, baffling and powerful.

To those living with it , they know of its power. Someone who is clean and sober may outwardly seem to be doing well on their journey, but then all of a sudden, without warning, they have a slip or even succumb to a full-blown relapse.

This type of behavior is very confusing to addicts and to their family members and friends, who often think that once their loved one goes for treatment that the problem will be fixed. Unfortunately, addiction doesn’t work that way. It’s a chronic illness that has all of the qualities listed above, along with “infinite patience.”

I would refer everyone troubled by addiction to: Stjoesphinstitute.com understanding addiction: cunning, baffling, powerful.

I will leave you with these words from a friend a mine, David Leblanc who said this to me recently: “I’ve known you since before you could walk Your mom played softball with my mom, so I watched you during games. I’ve known you since before your escapades. I saw your heart before it was hardened by crime and drugs. I see your heart even when you are raging mad. A man’s heart is what it is from birth. He’s capable of bad but deep inside of his heart, if it is good, he’s good. You just took awhile to figure out that you’re a good man. Some of us always knew! Maybe God or whoever is out there put you through all of the bad for this mission. Our town is going through some dark times, and maybe it needs a good-hearted man who’s looked into the abyss to help turn the lights back on!”

Sincerely,

Mike Delair

“Party on Park” back on for Saturday of Memorial Day weekend

by Dan McClelland

Plans are moving ahead for the merchants in the uptown business district to be able to celebrate the arrival of the summer tourist season with their “Party on Park” on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.

Last week’s village board meeting saw the arrival of a path forward for the retail event.

At the March village board meeting Mayor Paul Maroun invited representatives of the chamber of commerce and the uptown retail community to explain the importance of closing two blocks of Park Street and two blocks of Cliff Ave. for the mall-like event first celebrated here in 2019.

Free Press Publisher Dan McClelland, who is currently interim chamber of commerce president, opened the discussion Wednesday.

He said for years from his perch on the second floor of the Free Press he has watched the Memorial Day traffic pour through the uptown business district on its way to destinations around the North Country, but seldom stopping here.

Mr. McClelland said Tupper Lake’s summer tourist season doesn’t really kick into high gear until mid- to late-June, once school gets out.

“So I’ve been talking in recent weeks with some of our new Park Street retailers- Garrett Kopp, Josh Mclean and my daughter-in-law Faith McClelland” about reviving their Memorial Day Saturday ‘Party on Park’ to stop some of those tourists flowing through here in town for a time.

“They would like to re-enact what in 2019 was a very successful event where the two blocks of the uptown business district on Park Street was closed to vehicular traffic. They were able to draw a number of exhibitors and vendors to join them on the street from around the area and they were able to make some money that Saturday, after a very long winter.

“That year, for the first time perhaps ever, Tupper Lake really benefitted from the Memorial Day traffic!”

He told the village leaders “that it is high time our community begins to think out of the box a bit to garner more tourist trade- and do things we haven’t done before to boost our local economy!”

Mr. McClelland said they were also fortunate that evening to have Joe Sciortino in attendance that evening to explain what can and cannot be done with a section of state highway- as the two block section of the business district is. Mr. Sciortino is a new Tupper Lake resident. He is the state Department of Transportation’s new Franklin County resident engineer, who succeed Rob Haynes last year.

Garrett Kopp, the founder of Birch Boys, was the first local retailer to speak Wednesday.

“Obviously my business has changed over the years. The relevance of this to me is not quite as strong for me now, as it was the year (2019) when I helped get this event started,” he began.

Mr. Kopp’s Birch Boys online retail and wholesale company and its many chaga and other products is now headquartered in the former Tupper Brewery building on Cliff Ave.

He said Josh Mclean, who manages the Adirondack Store in the former Ginsberg building “has really taken over the reins of its planning and pushing it forward!”

“My point in being here is to explain to you guys what the event means to us financially to do this event,” he told the village board members.

“If you were to take your average day of retail sales in the month of May, compared with what we did in 2019 during ‘Party on Park,’ the retail sales in the Adirondack Store was six times higher.”

He said his Birch Boys company, when it was located in the Adirondack Store, saw its sales jump by 300% over a normal day.

Mr. Kopp said he spoke with Russ Cronin, who was in 2019 the co-owner with David Tomberlin of Well Dressed Food when the two blocks were closed. They saw three times their average daily sales during “Party on Park.”

“It was a really, really awesome event for all of us!”

Josh Mclean said going forward they would like to see that happen again every Memorial Day weekend “and want to know tonight how to best work with the village to make that happen.”

“We’re willing to do whatever it takes to make it easy for the village to let us do this every year- and to see that it is always done the right way!”

“Having the street closed that day draws many to that area to check out our event!”

Mr. Mclean said when the state highway is open to vehicular traffic that Saturday- as it is every other day of the year- “people just drive right through out town.”

He said the pedestrian mall-style setting of their event catches the eyes of families passing through the uptown business district that day, and coaxes them to stop and shop.

The young businessman said the first year they staged the event it was an unbridled success. In 2022 when they weren’t permitted to have the two blocks of Park Street closed, it was celebrated instead on the two blocks of the village-owned Cliff Ave., “but it wasn’t as successful.”

Cliff Ave. likely won’t be closed for the event this year, if the retailers can win permission from the village board and the state DOT to close the two blocks of Park Street.

He said the Cliff Ave. site didn’t produce the impact that the event saw when Park Street was closed in 2019.

“The whole point of the event” is showcasing the owners of the various renovated businesses on the Park Street business strip and their investments and upgrades there.

“We want to showcase those businesses and not hinder them in any way,” Josh said of the event’s primary mission.

The two men brought with them a list of about 15 business owners or operators in favor of returning the event to a closed two-block stretch of Park Street.

Mr. Mclean said he was aware of only one business owner against it and that business wasn’t even located on Park Street. The objection involved using Cliff Ave. for the event- as the retailers did last year.

He said that in 2019 even some of the non-retail businesses in the two blocks put out tables that Saturday with brochures or other products to promote their businesses.

Rachel King, owner of Earth Girl Designs, said last year’s event generated three and one half times the sales of a normal Saturday. “It certainly helped us kick off our summer with money for inventory and materials. It generated a significant amount of money for us. It was a great event for us!”

Her partner, Artisan Brandon Cooke of The Crystal Forest Gems remembered he received a number of custom orders that day from visitors passing though the area. “It got people in our shop where they learned there was a silversmith there to help them.”

He said that relative rush of customers that day, seeking his specially crafted items, was both surprising and welcome.

“I typically don’t see more than one person a day come in and ask me to make them something. I saw several new people that day...it was a very good day for me!”

Garrett Kopp said there are a number of people in Tupper Lake who have craft-type businesses and who aren’t situated on Park Street that joined them those two events. “-And they did very well.”

“I can tell you I started my business going to any pop-up sales event around the region which would have me- whether it was a festival at Gore Mt. or a farmers’ market in Potsdam. Some were great while some were a waste of my time, but I needed to try them all out.”

He said the itinerant vendors who attend both “Parties on Park” all did well in sales.

Mr. Kopp said it helps generate money for them that they can re-invest in their small businesses.

Some of those people, Mr. Mclean noted, hope some day to have their own “brick and mortar” stores.

Mr. Kopp said a number of businesses in other parts of the town like Raquette River Brewing take advantage of the Park Street event to sell and promote their wares.

“We want the event to be inclusive of all our local businesses,” Mr. Mclean said was their hope.

Tupper Arts President Susan Delehanty said she remembered working at their site during the event in 2019. “We were slammed with a lot of visitors.” She said many were visitors “and they were incredulous with what they saw on Park Street that day.”

“Many told me they’d always driven by” on the Memorial Day weekends over the years, “but were never encouraged to stop- until that year! They wanted to know where they could eat, where there were other gift shops and stores.”

Mrs. Delehanty said her group was a little concerned that closing Park Street might hurt some of the businesses there who benefit by people pulling up at the curb to pick up take-out orders.

“So I asked Gary Kucipak next door, who owns Guido’s Pizzeria, if it impacted his business and he told me it ‘didn’t impact him either way, because most of my business is done with deliveries’.”

“That made me feel better that closing the two blocks didn’t negatively impact his business,” she told the village board members.

She said some of those first customers in 2019 have returned in subsequent summers after being introduced to their shop that first year.

Andrew Russell, who is one of the new owners of the Top Notch Motel on Upper Park Street and who was at the meeting on another matter, said when he and his wife Ilona are driving through a community any time with their two small children they often use events like “Party on Park” as a chance to stop, get out and let their kids stretch their legs. -And often times, he noted, he and his wife will shop a bit.

At that point the mayor took the floor for a moment and said people often ask him why Tupper Lake does not paint our main thoroughfare green like their do in Saranac Lake on St. Patrick’s Day each year.

“The main road in Saranac Lake is not a state highway, so it does not have to follow state guidelines in its main business district.”

Retailers will lobby tonight for closing uptown business district for “Party on Park”

by Dan McClelland

At least two members of the Park Street retail merchant community are expected to appear before the village board at its monthly meeting tonight to present solid facts why the uptown business district should again be a pedestrian mall on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.

Appearing with Garrett Kopp of the Birch Boys business on Cliff Ave. and Josh McLean of the Adirondack Store at Cliff and Park will be the hometown publisher, Dan McClelland who is currently the interim president of the Tupper Lake Chamber of Commerce. The chamber all but dissolved last fall, but Dan McClelland has hopes of creating a similar but different type of business organization in its place.

Their appearance was prompted by a call from Mayor Paul Maroun to come before the board at its April meeting to convince them why Cliff Ave. should be closed for the retail community’s “Party on Park” on the Memorial Day Saturday, where local organizations and vendors join the retailers for the street festival.

The event was launched in 2019 and held again one of the COVID years, and both times Park Street was closed for it. The retailers’ request to close Park Street was denied by the village leaders last year.

The day-long closure of that part of Park Street caused no problems for traffic through or in and around the village those times.

Cliff Ave., which is a village street, has been routinely closed for special events there in recent years, most recently during the operation of the Tupper Brewing, when it was situated there for about four years.

At the village board’s March meeting the mayor said that the two blocks of the Park St. business area won’t be closed to vehicle traffic this year, and Cliff Ave., may not either.

He asked that the retail merchants and the chamber appear in April to plead their case.

Village leaders have always been reluctant to close the Park St. blocks of the uptown business district because it is a state highway. It requires the permission of the regional Department of Transportation office in Malone to close it. That permission has come a number of times in the past, including the day-long celebration several years ago to commemorate the completion of the ambitious DOT rebuilding of the business district corridor five years ago.

It has also been closed also for at least one public event organized by Tupper Arts in the holiday season.

The mayor is likely to argue tonight that the village currently does not have enough officers (three sergeants and four uniformed officers) to direct traffic around the business district for the Memorial Day Saturday.

All Park Street area businesses are invited to attend tonight’s meeting to weigh in on the issue.

The meeting begins at 6p.m.

North Country Community College announces venture with UPNCoding in Tupper Lake; new jobs on horizon

North Country Community College is partnering with a new computer coding initiative here called UpNCoding to prepare students for careers in the growing software engineering industry.

UpNCoding is both a company and a course that focuses on preparing the next generation of software engineers through education and training.

Together, NCCC and UpNCoding will offer a 12-week course, beginning this May, that is designed to provide students with career opportunities across multiple industries and with varying sized companies.

When they complete the course, students will be prepared for modern software interview processes and will be educated in various potential entry-level positions from Full-Stack Engineer to Machine Learning Engineer.

UpNCoding has been creating a partner network where students would be able to interview for open positions immediately after completion of the course.

The course introduces software engineering principles through instruction-led projects and industry standard tools that students will interact with in their future technology careers. The class meets three times per week for 3-hour sessions. The sessions will be available in a HyFlex format with in-person, synchronous online instruction in addition to recorded sessions to allow for flexible learning. All sessions will be taught by one or two industry-experienced instructors.

“While other institutions focus on a front-end app development, UpNCoding is providing a more well-rounded, full-stack education that better addresses the growing needs of the software engineering industry, said Dan Preice, CEO of UpNCoding and one of the course instructors.

North Country Community College will host the course while UpNCoding will provide instruction and the curriculum.

“We are excited about our joint initiative with UpNCoding,” said Sarah Maroun, North Country’s Vice President of Academic Affairs. “This technical curriculum will provide direct-to-work training with a 12-week program, and we are excited that additional courses are being prepared in topics such as Security, DevOps, Microprocessor Firmware and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning to better address the needs of the industry and region.”

To further align the needs of the community, NCCC and UpNCoding are also developing a second phase of their relationship with a joint venture to provide software contracting services as a means to introduce resume-building workplace experience to our students.

The course schedule is May 22 through August 7, every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the NCCC campus from 4-7p.m. The format will be HyFlex with in-person, live broadcasting, and recording available.

More information can be found at www.nccc.edu/coding. Or call 518-891-2915 ext. 1203

Recent grants boost fundraising of history museum project

by Dan McClelland

When they are not continuing with their renovations at the new Tupper Lake History Museum on Upper Park Street, the volunteer board members are working full speed on grant applications to assist the local fundraising work.

The board of directors of the local museum, under the direction of Chairwoman Kathleen Lefebvre, is committing a good share of its recent donations to getting their new place finished for a grand opening this summer.

-And there’s been plenty of good news in recent months.

The museum board received a $5,000 donation recently from the Aseel Legacy Fund, created by the family of the late Alfred Aseel in support of good projects here.

More good news came on the back of that generous donation- this time from an anonymous donor, who sent along a check for $5,000.

On the last day of March last week the museum fundraisers received even more good news- this time from the Adirondack Foundation. The local foundation awarded a grant of $2,500 through its Generous Acts fund “for bringing the Great Room to Life.” Partnering with the Generous Acts program of the Adirondack Foundation is its Fund for Tupper Lake.

The last piece of great news came from Leslee Mounger, funds and program officer at the foundation to Museum Board Member Joe Kimpflen, who wrote the grant application.

“We are so thankful to the very community-minded folks at the Adirondack Foundation, at the Aseel Legacy Fund and from our anonymous donor for helping us with our renovations and believing in the importance of a vibrant local museum to tell some of the history of our community,” Kathleen Lefebvre said this week.

“We will be open for business again this summer, thanks to these recent donors and to the many people who have donated to our project in recent years!”

Several other grant applications have been filed in recent weeks by the museum volunteers who are anxiously awaiting the results. The largest is a $10,000 “Destination Development and Marketing” grant application that was filed to the Franklin County Tourism Department by Monday’s deadline by Mr. Kimpflen. The application followed a meeting Tourism Director Phil Hans had with Mrs. Lefebvre and Board Member Dan McClelland last month at the museum site.

The museum board’s fundraising efforts continue and donations can be sent to the Tupper Lake History Museum, P.O. Box 824, Tupper Lake.

Once all renovation costs are covered, the campaign will devote all donated resources to paying off the building’s $100,000 mortgage.

The names of all donors will continue to be published in the Tupper Lake Free Press.

Watch for a story on the museum renovations and other development there in upcoming issues.

Erin’s Easter Egg Hunt set for April 1

Young Easter Egg hunters and their parents are reminded of Erin’s Easter Egg Hunt set for April 1. The annual event remembers Erin Farkas Dewyea and her many kindnesses to local students during her all too brief teaching years here.

Sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Tupper Lake, of which Erin was a member, and the Adirondack Regional Federal Credit Union, the hunt for tasty eggs starts at noon sharp on the fields of L.P. Quinn Elementary School.

Infants to pre-k students will hunt on half of the Rotary Club’s football field and the kindergarten to second graders will comb the other half for goodies in the colorful shells. Older egg hunters in grades three to five will hunt the grounds in front of the elementary school.

Hunters and their parents are advised it’s a rain or shine event, so come prepared with boots, rain coats, and such to handle anything Mother Nature throws at us the first day of April.

Hunters are also encouraged to bring with them their collection baskets. There will be an opportunity to have a photo taken with the Easter Bunny.

The event is free for all children up to the fifth grade.

Erin’s Easter Egg Hunt set for April 1

Erin’s Easter Egg Hunt, which remembers the memory of Erin Farkas Dewyea and many kindnesses to local students during her all too brief teaching years here, will again be celebrated on Saturday, April 1.

Sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Tupper Lake, of which Erin was a member, and the Adirondack Regional Federal Credit Union, the hunt for tasty eggs starts at noon sharp on the fields of L.P. Quinn Elementary School.

Infants to pre-k students will hunt on half of the Rotary Club’s football field and the kindergarten to second graders will comb the other half for goodies in the colorful shells. Older egg hunters in grades three to five will hunt the grounds in front of the elementary school.

Hunters and their parents are advised it’s a rain or shine event, so come prepared with boots, rain coats, and such to handle anything Mother Nature throws at us the first day of April.

Hunters are also encouraged to bring with them their collection baskets. There will be an opportunity to have a photo taken with the Easter Bunny.

The event is free for all children up to the fifth grade.

Come tell your story, tomorrow

by Joseph Kimpflen

The best thing about our history, is how much of it is saved, to teach and inspire us. The worst thing about our history, is how much of it is lost, forever, every day. Tomorrow (Thursday, March 16), our effort to change that, right here in Tupper Lake, revs back into gear.

Tupper Tale Tellers (T3) is an oral history project, dedicated to preserving the rich history of our area by tapping the memories of those who lived it. At the same time, the program seeks to foster cross-generational communication and understanding, because it is our young people who take the lead in collecting older residents’ stories. T3 operates with the cooperation of both the Tupper Lake Central School District and the Goff-Nelson Library.

Launched in 2019 with a grant from the Aseel Legacy Fund, the program quickly won the participation of a core group of about 15 Tupper Lake High School students, and got off to a vigorous start. Local residents interviewed early on included John Amoriell (at the time the town’s oldest resident, at 109) and town historian Jon Kopp (with participation from Birch Boys entrepreneur Garrett Kopp). The COVID epidemic forced T3, like so much else, to go on hold, although not before the students found ingenious workaround for the virus, interviewing well-known Tupper Laker Jim Frenette remotely via Zoom, as well as family members at home.

Tomorrow’s session, to be held in the Community Room (entrance off back parking lot) of the Library from 1p.m. to 4p.m. is open to all. It will be all at once an open house for anyone interested in learning about T3; a jump-start to get the program going again post-COVID; and a chance to conduct actual interviews. In addition to high school students currently involved in T3, expected participants include middle-school students hoping to join the effort, and graduates who were active in the program’s pre-COVID era. Future plans for T3- including a soon-to-be-launched website, and longer-term plans for how the taped interviews will be organized, stored, and made available to the public—will also likely be discussed.

So, think back on your life and times, and what you could tell the future. How you coped with severe winters in years gone by. What Tupper Lake High School was like for a student in the 1970s. Memorable hunting seasons over the years. Work in the woods, on the railroads, and at great camps. Businesses come and gone in town. Soldiers returning from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Family life during the Depression. The Spanish Flu epidemic of 1919 (ok, maybe not that one). But you get the idea. You remember more than you think you do, and it’s a lot more important, and interesting, than you think it is!

In addition to providing seniors the satisfaction of telling their stories, and giving all of us a precious historical record to draw upon, it’s not hard to see the potential benefits for the students involved. The act of interviewing, itself, builds self-confidence, listening and thinking ability, and good interpersonal and social skills. Subsequent work, editing and organizing the raw material of interview tapes, should involve critical thinking and analytic skills, as well as decision-making ability, not to mention command of grammar, spelling and punctuation. Not a bad haul of learning, in an era when young people are too-frequently seen as overly focused on social media and gaming, to the detriment of traditional academic skills.

T3 operates with the adult supervision of Adirondack Experience veterans Caroline Welsh and Christine Campeau, and of TLHS’s Wendy Cross.

So, come out tomorrow, to encourage our young people in a great initiative—and maybe to tell your own stories of the colorful life you have lived, and that is now a part of our rich, shared history. If you cannot come tomorrow, but want to be interviewed, or know someone who does, reach out to Goff-Nelson Library Director Courtney Carey (518-359-5186; goffnelson@gmail.com), and she will put you in touch with the T3 team.

Joint town and village board meeting re-scheduled for March 20

The joint meeting of the town and village boards that was originally scheduled for last Thursday has been rescheduled for Monday, March 20 at 5p.m. at the Community Room of the Emergency Services Building on Santa Clara Ave.

On the agenda for discussion that evening will be a number of community issues which relate to both boards and both local governments.

The public is most welcome to attend.

Chamber to reorganize this month; tourism director to showcase county grants

The Tupper Lake Chamber of Commerce will hold a re-organizational meeting on Thursday, March 16 at 4p.m. at Raquette River Brewing.

The aim of the meeting is to gather interested business people and community-minded residents to chart a new course for the chamber, which has been in operation here since shortly after the turn of the last century. The current aim is to develop an organization that won’t be involved in staging events or creating advertising materials or promotions. The principle aim will be to develop a membership organization that will be a strong advocate for commerce and economic development- a new voice for all things good for Tupper Lake and its economy.

The goal of that afternoon’s meeting will be to create a steering committee to guide a refocussed chamber.

The chamber’s board of directors last fall announced the planned dissolution of the organization. To that end, the 2022 town board agreed to enlarge its youth activities department into a full-blown recreation department that assumed the role of event-promoter here. The board agreed to take over all of the chamber’s half dozen or so major events each year.

After the chamber board’s vote to dissolve, long time Chamber board member and chamber treasurer Sandi Strader asked Free Press Publisher Dan McClelland, an active community volunteer for many years here, to help her re-energize the organization. The March 16 meeting is a step to that end.

Also featured at the March 16 will be a presentation by Phil Hans, the new director of Franklin County Tourism, who will outline the many new grants available for tourism and economic development now available through his county office. Since the county’s tourism office was re-formed last year to take advantage of the more than a million dollars now generated in the county each year from the new bed tax, businesses and organizations have won dozens of $5,000 and $10,000 grants to help fund improvements that will foster more business in the county and more visitors through the advancement of tourist-promotion endeavors.

His information should be particularly meaningful and helpful for all businesses here and for the leaders of all community organizations.

Those planning to attend the meeting are asked to RSVP Mr. McClelland at tupperlakefreepress@ gmail.com.