Council members should have kept lake as an option

Council members should have kept lake as an option
The Saratogian
01/02/2005
The mayor promised there would be a City Council vote on Saratoga Springs water before the end of 2004, and he was good to his word. There comes a time when discussion has to be closed and a decision made.
That decision, in a 3-2 vote, was to kill the possibility of using Saratoga Lake as a source of drinking water for Saratoga Springs and to turn to the county's plan for a regional water system that will tap the Hudson River.
We're not convinced that Saratoga Springs will be better off with the county water system, though we're hoping to be proven wrong.
Committing to the county plan does not, however, excuse the three members of the council -- Mayor Michael Lenz and Commissioners Tom Curley and Stephen Towne -- for shutting the door to Saratoga Lake. It wasn't necessary, and it wasn't wise.
The council should have voted to keep Saratoga Lake in its back pocket, as Commissioners Matt McCabe and Tom McTygue wanted to do. Instead, Lenz, Towne and Curley dropped Saratoga Lake just before the finish line: they failed to complete the process that the state requires to have maintained Saratoga Lake as an option.
That was a mistake.
We're not moaning about the thousands of dollars and many months invested in the process. But we're shaking our heads over the refusal to do what would have been in the best interests of Saratoga Springs -- to keep Saratoga Lake available, even if only as a last resort in a dire emergency.
By the way, whatever one's opinion about the water options, the public should be disgusted with the way the water vote occurred.
The water issue was conspicuously absent from the mayor's agenda at the public session that takes place the morning before the City Council meeting. The agenda session is supposed to be a place for council members -- in the presence of the press and interested parties -- to preview, explain, question and hash out what they'll be bringing up at the regular meeting. Water was nowhere to be found at the agenda session, yet it magically appeared as a late entry on the mayor's agenda for the regular meeting.
The vote had indeed been hashed out -- with two of the council members and the public left out.
Bringing the water vote up at the agenda session might not have changed the vote. But it would have demonstrated respect for the public and the process.
And at the regular meeting, the council members should have gone on record with their reasons for not keeping Saratoga Lake in their pocket.
If the water system planned by Saratoga County falls apart, or takes too long, or becomes too expensive -- what then?
©The Saratogian 2005