Village of New Paltz officials, trying again to win the annual $10 million in state prize money to revitalize downtown, are going with a different approach: instead of submitting a joint application with the town officials here in New Paltz, they are partnering with leaders in Ellenville to make a two-village bid instead.
The Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI), part of the competitive state funding model set up by the last governor, has in the past been likened by Mayor Tim Rogers to the Hunger Games. That’s because municipal leaders in each of ten regions must compete with each other for a variety of forms of state aid including basic infrastructure support, with the top prize being that $10 million DRI grant. Despite a new governor now being in office following the wave of scandals that swept out Andrew Cuomo, Rogers and other officials are preparing for the sixth year of competing for this coveted prize. While the mayor has also praised this process for helping to focus better on priorities, that focusing takes the form of spending money on detailed plans and proposals that won’t get reimbursed except to the award-winning applicant.
In recognition of the difficulty of getting this award in a small municipality, Governor Kathy Hochul added a new competition this year for the little guys, called “NY Forward.” Under this program, the decision-makers in each region will have another $9 million to hand out for projects in two or three “villages, hamlets and other small, neighborhood-scale municipal centers,” according to details on the state web site. Ellenville and New Paltz village leaders will be submitting separate applications for that money, in addition to a joint DRI application.
The joint application will highlight the commonalities between the two Ulster County communities: these are both villages where the populace is in need of larger employers and also struggles with opioid problems; both municipalities also have offices of the same nonprofit agency, Family of Woodstock. Rogers highlighted a “symbolic connection” in the form of the historic Smiley carriage roads that led from both places to Mohonk Mountain House. Leaders of the Open Space Institute have long dreamed of restoring those as a trail, the mayor said.
Others at the board table praised the novel approach. Michelle Zipp said that it spoke to the importance of working with neighbors, and Alex Wojcik feels that this is evidence that villages are not forgotten, orphaned communities.
Among past DRI applications were several unsuccessful attempts to fund a joint town-village recreation plan that would have included improvements to Hasbrouck and Clearwater parks. As the soccer fields being sought have since been built in large part through work of local community members, that’s no longer an option, Rogers explained.
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