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Saturday,ÊO ctoberÊ1,Ê2016
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In SPORTS | pg. 13-15
In Boys Soccer action
Blue Bombers get by Willsboro, ELCS
www.SunCommunityNews.com
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In OPINION | pg. 6
Access Adirondacks
A needed component to land talks
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In ARTS | pg. 9
The Glass Menagerie
will be performed at Pendragon on Oct. 9
County to start collecting occupancy tax from Airbnb Online vacation rental marketplace has been making inroads in Essex County By Pete DeMola
pete@suncommunitynews.com
ELIZABETHTOWN — County officials have inked a deal with a popular online vacation rental marketplace to collect occupancy tax. Airbnb will start collecting the 3 percent tax in Essex County on Oct. 1. The popular marketplace, headquartered in San Francisco,
CA, will collect the fee on behalf of renters, but will not be enforce the policy and facilitate registration. required to disclose the exact location of the units. But owners have been registering their units with county “We are not going to know where it’s coming from, but we officials, and the process has gone relatively smoothly, the ofare getting the money,” said Essex County Treasurer Mike Dis- ficials have reported. kin. “We’re starting to see the effect of vacation rentals,” Diskin said. “More and more people are recording them.” Tourism officials originally estimated applying the 3 percent ON TRACK occupancy tax on these units would net the county at least $250,000 per year. Essex County implemented a tax on vacation rental units While it’s too early to offer definitive figures, officials ap— fully-furnished homes that have flourished in recent years as travelers have embraced more customized experiences — peared cautiously optimistic they will reach that benchmark. beginning on Jan. 1, 2016 following months of debate. >> See OCCUPANCY TAX | pg. 7 At the time, county officials grappled with how they would
Refugee resettlement
No easy anwers to revitalization, say ANCA attendees
As he navigates the storm over a controversial program on his home turf, Chris Louras offers local leaders some tips from the trenches KEESEVILLE — The outcry over Syrian refugees has shaped much of Rutland’s discourse this summer. The dispute over whether to accept 100 asylum seekers has cleaved the city, pitting Mayor Chris Louras against constituents, Pete city aldermen and other elected officials. DeMola Editor As the five-term mayor waits for the Department of State to sign off on the expansion of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program into his city — a roadblock thrown up by peeved aldermen — Louras ventured to New York last week, where he briefed local leaders on his push to make the state’s third-largest city a host for escapees of the war-torn nation. A decision may come as soon as 10 days, he said, with the first family arriving as early as December. Bringing refugees into the city, he said, goes hand-in-hand with urban revitalization efforts. Their entry, Louras believes, would breathe new life into an ailing city. Rutland is on track to lose five percent of its population
Building dynamic local economies requires a complex formula, say speakers at Adirondack North Country Association Rutland Mayor Chris Louras is navigating controversy as he attempts to spearhead refugee resettlement efforts in his city. Louras, a Republican, briefed the Adirondack North Country Association on his efforts at their annual meeting in Keeseville on Friday, Sept. 23, 2016.
By Pete DeMola
pete@suncommunitynews.com
with each new census. Vacant housing poses an ongoing threat, and jobs are going unfilled due to their undesirability, the mayor said. “We’ve got a population problem, and we need to turn that around,” Louras said. “We are driving forward because it is the key to our future.” But the road to get here wasn’t easy. The mayor has come under fire for a perceived lack of transparency. Earlier this summer, city aldermen asked the department of state to examine the issue. A former political opponent also circulated a petition, which was nixed, asking the issue be brought to a vote. Louras admitted he could have been more open.
KEESEVILLE — Some of the region’s leading thinkers gathered in a drafty stone mill along the Ausable River last week to ponder a fundamental question: How to unpack the secrets of successful communities? Why are some downtowns bustling, while others are lined with empty storefronts? What makes some communities a nexus of the local food movement? And how, exactly, did a remote town along the Canadian border transform a decrepit industrial waterfront into a boutique hotel? Answer: It varies. Some of the officials underpinning these changes attempted to offer a crash course to their counterparts at the event, the annual meeting of the Adirondack North Country Association (ANCA), a nonprofit tasked with jumpstarting rural economies across a 14-county swath. The group has a track record of success since its formation
>> See REFUGEES | pg. 5
>> See ANCA | pg. 4
Photo by Pete DeMola