BY JEFF CHUDZINSKI

North Country This Week

MASSENA — Village officials are considering uses for village funds through the American Rescue Plan Act, including a new fire truck potentially.  

During the Feb. 15 board meeting, Village Mayor Greg Paquin brought up the idea of utilizing the funds to purchase a new fire truck, among other ideas.

“That truck, E-28, is the truck that is always used for almost every call, if I’m not mistaken. And it has been around since I was in the department a long time ago, I’m guessing over 20 years ago,” Paquin said.

Foreman Aaron Hardy confirmed the truck is well over 20 years old and had a full refurbishment 10-12 years ago, at a hefty expense.

“It is my idea and hope, a big hope I know, that we may be able to use some of the funding to buy the truck outright and not have to bond for it,” Paquin said.

If the village were able to purchase the truck outright, the cost would be $625,000 from the ARPA funds. There would be no impact to taxpayers, as no funding would be utilized from the village budget, officials say.

Paquin and Village Treasurer Kevin Felt both said the move to avoid bonding for the truck would save the village $50,000 in the first year alone.

“That’s the equivalent of a 1% tax raise to the tax base,” Felt said.

Other ideas that were brought up for the funding included a mask fitting machine for the fire department, which would save time and money, according to Deputy Mayor Matt LeBire.

“As of right now, our firefighters have to go to Canton to have their masks fitted, both for the professional and volunteer staff. If we purchased the machine ourselves, we could do it all in house and offer the service to other area departments as well,” LeBire said.

LeBire also suggested utilizing some of the funding for further marketing and promotional materials for the village.

Massena was awarded $10 million in December as part of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. The committee overseeing the DRI project held its first meeting on Monday, Feb. 14.

“With everything happening right now, with the DRI and our downtown coming around, I think it might be a good time to create new materials and banners to promote local events and causes. We have done that sort of thing in the past and received a lot of positive feedback,” LeBire said.

In total, the ARPA funds are going to be well over $900,000 with the next disbursement, according to Paquin.

“Our next disbursement is coming in the next few weeks and I want to say we will stand at around $987,000 or so. So all of these ideas are very possible with the funding we will have on hand,” Paquin said.