Towns of Kingsbury and Fort Ann

CONSOLIDATION GAINS FANS SLOWLY:

By the year 2008, construction could begin on a massive public works barn that would house equipment owned by Washington County and the towns of Kingsbury and Fort Ann, said Willy Grimmke, superintendent of public works for Washington County.

In that intermunicipal dream scenario, the cooperatively owned structure would eliminate the need for four separate smaller buildings, each of which is currently falling into a state of disrepair.

Four older structures could be sold, putting them back on the tax rolls. Utility costs could be slashed and employee overhead could be cut by eliminating positions through attrition.

Again, that would be an ideal situation.

Municipalities throughout the region are continually discussing similar consolidation projects. But many may never evolve from paperwork to bricks and mortar. Other communities will take years to make the transition.

State Sen. Elizabeth Little, R-Queensbury, who chairs the state Senate's committee on local government, is passionate about consolidation -- where it works.

But she said the obstacles stacked against pushing these projects to completion are as numerous as the layers of New York municipal government.

"It's a slow process," Little said.

Washington County has been talking with Kingsbury and Fort Ann about merging garages for at least a year.

"It's one of those things that is important to do and important to look at, but it's not along the line of the crisis of the day," Grimmke said.

Often, when Little meets with town and village officials, they have a knee-jerk reaction against change.

"It's human nature," Little said.

Last year, she met with officials from the town and village of Fort Edward. The municipalities share office space, so Little assumed she was starting off with one foot in the door.

But when she started making suggestions, they balked.

Then, after she won them over, "they wanted money for a study," Little said. "I said no. The people involved need to look at it."
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"Sometimes I get discouraged, but then I talk to someone else, and they say maybe we could do this or that," Little said.

To make life easier for municipalities investigating consolidation, her office is working on creating an online clearinghouse. The online database would contain agreements that have succeeded and failed, and it would be searchable by local officials.

In a Senate report on intermunicipal agreements, Little's office has already made some headway. Staff members have compiled success stories, including mergers between the town and village of Lake George, as well as the Cambridge and Greenwich police departments.

"I always mention that one. It is one of my favorites," Little said.