MASSENA -- Facing a challenge in November, Massena’s incumbent supervisor says he wants to keep working toward turning Massena into a fishing destination and get the town highway garage issue resolved.

Joseph Gray, a Republican, has held the supervisor’s office since 2009. It was his first time in elected politics. Prior to that, he worked for the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe in the 1990s and was with the state Senate for 12 years “dealing with local government issues” on behalf of senators Joe Griffo and Griffo’s predecessor, Ray Meier.

“I got to know my way around Albany with both the tribe and that job, and got to know my way around Washington with the tribe as well,” Gray said.

Before his election, he ran an unsuccessful campaign for the supervisor’s office.

Priority Projects, Economic Development

Gray says if he is re-elected, the town will begin building a new highway garage in the first year of his new term, as well as push an agenda that favors tourism-related projects.

“The town has needed a new town garage for 30 years at least,” he said. “If I am re-elected, we will start constructing a new town garage sometime next year.”

Another project Gray said he wants started early in his new term is to have built a 28-mile multi-purpose trail from Hawkins Point to Waddington.

“Imagine a 28-mile trail all on the St. Lawrence River, you could have the Lake St. Lawrence Marathon,” he said. “It would draw a ton of people, bring a bunch of money to town, I want to work on that next year.”

“We’re putting parts of that in place right now with recreational spending from NYPA,” he said, adding that neighboring towns of Waddington and Louisville would be involved.

“We’re already working together,” he said. “I talk with supervisors in those towns very frequently.”

He says he thinks the town should spend more than they are now to “develop and promote our area not just for tourism, but as a wonderful place to live.”

“We have extremely low-cost hydropower … we have beautiful neighborhoods, a beautiful setting on three rivers, great restaurants, a great school system,” he said.

He believes good-paying jobs need to come from the private sector, not public.

“If the town hires more people, it costs taxpayers more money. We don’t need more public jobs, we need more private sector jobs. It’s going to be very difficult to replace the jobs lost over the last two decades at General Motors and Alcoa and Reynolds,” Gray said. “We also need to change our minds about tourism - our mindset that tourism only happens in the summer, and fishing only happens in the summer.”

He wants to look elsewhere in the United States for ideas on marketing the town, and thinks they should be spending more on tourism promotion than they are now.

“Yes, we should be spending more money, Are we getting enough bang for the buck? Yes, we’re not spending enough bucks,” Gray said.

He cited an example he says he saw on a recent news broadcast, Dayton, Tenn., which is home to a population slightly less than Massena.

“They spend $90,000 a year on tournament sponsor fees. They’re spending that kind of money to get people to come there for a fishing tournament … they estimate that puts over $13 million a year in the local economy,” Gray said.

“They have 30 tournaments a year. In Massena, we have one. And the town board (is) spending $10,000 in sponsor fees … and it was (Councilman Samuel) Carbone and (Councilman Steve) O’Shaughnessy that balked the most,” Gray said, referring to the Big Bass Blowout.

Last year, the board reported paying out $3,450 in prizes and taking in $1,800 in registrations. In May, the board voted to hold the event again with a $10,000 investment with the goal of 100 registrations, along with numerous changes to the format and timing.

“We need to look at what other people are doing, other towns. If a city of 9,100 people can hold 30 tournaments a year and spend $90,000, we need to do more,” he said. “We’ve got the state park here, wonderful campgrounds, we’ve got the marina.”

Working with Village

Gray says that he wants to work with the village as closely as possible, but he doesn’t necessarily agree with the mayor’s community development approach and thinks they should look at dissolving the village.

“No doubt we need to cooperate and we need to go a step further than that. Twenty-five years ago … I advocated for dissolution of the village. I do not thin we need tow layers of government in a town this size,” Gray said.

Mayor Tim Currier has been pushing what he describes as a community development model, where the municipalities do what they can to make their communities a better place to live and work, and functions now carried out by bodies like the BDC are done by larger organizations on a regional basis.

Gray thinks that may not necessarily be best for Massena.

“I get along well with the mayor. We have some different issues,” Gray said. “We’ve been kicking around the economic development model for a while. The mayor likes the community development model which I’m not opposed to.”

“My only hesitation with changing out economic development function is if company X wants to come to Massena, who do I refer them to? Where do we refer them? Do I say go talk to the county IDA? I don’t want to do that … they do a great job but what if county IDA says ‘we’ve got a great place for company x in Canton or Lisbon,’” the incumbent supervisor said. “We need to resolve how we will handle a very specific economic development function.”

MMH Asset Transfer

Massena Memorial Hospital is in the process of privatizing and is on track to do so by the end of the year. If it goes through, the town will be compensated for the loss of the MMH asset.

Gray says he wants to set up reserve accounts, one of which could fund the new town garage.

“We need to use that money to establish some reserves,” he said.

The board has tried to avoid raising taxes, which Gray says is “a good goal,” but sometimes they must raise taxes to keep up with rising annual contractual expenses.

“You have got be a bit careful because when you set up a reserve fund, that money is gone for that purpose … it can’t be used anywhere else” “I certainly want to see some of the money, that is a prime candidate for how it could be used for a new town barn,” he said. “It could help with initial design and siting of that. I don’t think we should go out and spend it. We have to be careful with what we do with that money and keep it in reserves for other purposes.”