By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- The Town Council on Wednesday voted to spend $5,100 to aid the Massena Chamber of Commerce with running the info kiosk at Eisenhower Locks and a lunch event to help bring in new members.

The board voted on two resolutions -- one to spend $5,000 on the summer help and a second to increase their funding by $100, which the chamber president said will fund a lunch to solicit new members.

Chamber president Jason Hendricks said the locks had 56,000 visitors last year and he believes putting a person out there helps promote the area the visitors.

"They're looking for information about Massena. They're looking for a souvenir ... and they're looking for someone local to give them the tidbits they need," he said. "One of the most important things we do is we're a clearinghouse of information for everything that goes on the village."

Councilman Tom Miller said he thinks the $5,000 is well spent.

"If there's 50,000 people ... we are losing an opportunity," he said. "I'm really in support of giving them $5,000."

The previous supervisor, Joe Gray, had wanted to ween organizations like the chamber off of public money.

"They were supposed to work on being self-sustainable, but with a few bumps in the road," Miller said, adding that the town used to fund the chamber at more than twice the amount they approved at the meeting. "It used to be $11,000."

LaShomb cited the recent state minimum wage increase as a challenge in keeping the chamber afloat.

"Coupled with the state increase and less funding, it was a struggle ... we would break even just about every year," he said.

In a separate action, the board voted to increase the chamber's funding for the year by $100, which Hendricks said he will use to pay for a lunch event to try and recruit new members, or bring back former ones.

"The idea of the whole lunch idea is right now, somewhere, we're in a conundrum where people have their old way of getting information and their new way of information and we're not bridging that gap," Hendricks told the board, adding that wants to "educate them (potential members) on the goals of the chamber and exactly what we do ... what value they get as being part of the Greater Massena Chamber of Commerce."