Jim Kinney wrote an article for the Saratogian, 12/12/2004, “Is the village still viable?” which discussed merging the Villages of Schuylerville and Victory and the Town of Saratoga. Both Village Mayors were quoted supporting the idea of merging all services. The article quoted Mayor Sherman “There is no doubt that we could save money.” On July 15, 2008, the Saratogian ran an Editorial “Time to do away with village government”. I agree with the statement in the article “Some local villages and towns can point to successfully shared services. But their eye ought to be on the bigger prize, the actual dissolution of village government.” There are too many layers of government in the Town of Saratoga and it’s time to consider reinventing into one unified governing body. Village government is expensive to Village taxpayers. The NYS Comptrollers Office did a study and they determined that villages are “Outdated Municipal Structures”. “A structure no one would design today.”
A small group of residents from the Villages of Schuylerville, Victory and the Town of Saratoga have formed the RSVP group and we believe our Villages should take advantage of the noncompetitive money available for Village Dissolution studies. Our website is http://dissolveourvillages.blogspot.com.
