BY PAUL MITCHELL
North Country This Week

CANTON -- The first piece of a multi-faceted puzzle in regards to utilizing funding from the American Rescue Plan Act for the Village of Canton was introduced at Wednesday’s monthly board meeting.

Trustee Anna Sorensen, who sits on the Infrastructure Committee, informed fellow board members that four areas of infrastructure work have been prioritized.

The main project centers around water as the village continues to search for a second water source to join its current Waterman Hill water resource. Also, repairs to the current water source need to be addressed.

“We want to get a handle on the big picture for priorities and needs for the village as we look at funding opportunities,” said Sorensen.

Included in the water piece are the village’s two water towers - one on the SUNY Canton campus and the other on Judson Street.

Sorensen said initial examination would call for repairs at the SUNY Canton site and possible replacement of the tower on Judson Street.

“At what point do we look at the cost of repairing or replacing,” she stated.

The second area involved storm sewers that needed significant work throughout the village. A camera or x-ray analysis of the sewer system is expected to be conducted in the near future.

The third and fourth areas are sewers and streets.

“We plan to address this in a systematic fashion each year and write it into the budget,” Sorensen noted. With streets, we will obviously make a plan to work on streets in a timely fashion. We have some decisions to make to be shovel ready.”

She said these expenditures need to be identified and applied for through the American Rescue Plan Act funds, totaling $663,545 for the village.

Trustee Carol Pynchon expressed her appreciation of the work conducted by Sorensen, Trustee Klaus Proemm and Village Superintendent Marty Miller.

“These scatter-shot band aids are just killing us,” she said.

“The unfortunate thing is that we are the bearers of bad news,” remarked Miller.

Mayor Michael Dalton requested that other village committees present their priority lists at the board’s November meeting.