This is a tale of an on-again, off-again romance as a courtship that began nearly five years ago continues. Over that time the Village of Ellenville has hunted for a new location to house its administration, looking all over Ellenville for the best place and weighing the options: to build or not to build.

Over that same period of time the village has been trying to entice the Town of Wawarsing to consider joining with it in a new structure and consolidate some municipal services. The town has had some discussions about such a prospect but has generally declined the village's advances. The most recent "no" came just last fall. But now it appears that there may be a possibility that the town and village will join together.

Through a recent series of calls between some Town of Wawarsing officials and Village of Ellenville officials, it appears that some on the town board are again raising the issue of the town moving into the new village hall.

The first mention of a renewed interest by the town was at the Ellenville Village Board meeting on February 12 when Mayor Jeff Kaplan announced that he and Village Manager Elliott Auerbach had been contacted by certain town board members who wanted more information on the village's progress in renovating the building as well as space considerations for the town's administrative offices.

When asked, Auerbach said that he has taken John Gavaris and Terry Houck, both town councilmen, on a tour of the village's new facility. At the last town board meeting, Councilman John Gavaris made a motion for the town to hire an appraiser to see how much the town's current home is worth should the town wish to move to the five-floor office building and sell its current location. The motion passed with a 3-1 vote with Gavaris, Houck and Councilwoman Ruth Ann Gunter voting for the motion. Town Supervisor James Dolaway was the lone dissenter with Councilman Tom Geelan absent from the meeting. Mr. Geelan, however, has been in charge of the town's efforts to renovate the current Town Hall and, at previous meetings, expressed his support for remaining in the present Canal Street location.

Dolaway said that if the Town Board was seriously considering a move to a new building there would be a number of questions that would have to be answered. Dolaway asked his board, "Who would be responsible for the building's upkeep? Would we lease? Would we own the building?"

Councilman Gavaris replied that, "We [town and village] could own the building jointly."

Dolaway replied, "Joint ownership is no good. You either want to be the owner or you want to be in a situation where you know who you need to complain to if something goes wrong."

When asked what had changed the board members' minds on the joint municipal project, Gavaris replied, "I have always been for it. I have not changed my mind. I just want to see what the facts are if we would move that way."

Councilwoman Ruth Ann Gunter said that, "I've always been in favor of the move. I was on the Village Board and now I am on the Town Board and I was in favor of it then and I am in favor of it now."

An unofficial poll of town employees that work in the current town hall suggests that they do not favor the idea of a move and would rather expand inside their own building.

In addition, for the town, there is the issue of cost and how it much it would have to contribute to the building as either a leasee or part owner as well as money to renovate the two or three floors it would need to occupy. If the town wanted to split the costs evenly with the village's projected cost of $1.5 million, Gavaris said, it would cost town taxpayers roughly $750,000.

For both municipalities, space is an issue with each municipality looking to either leave or expand its current home. For the last several months, the town has been exploring the possibility of expanding office space to the building's third floor, which is currently only partially used for record storage.

Village Manager Elliott Auerbach said in regards to the possibility of the town and village joining in one building, "It has always been my dream to bring both municipalities under one roof for the benefit of the public."

Auerbach went on to say that the town, in his view, has been dragging its feet and that the village is "aggressively moving forward" with plans to renovate the former Provident Bank building with a target date of some time in April to award contracts and with the occupancy date slated for August of this year.

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