By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- The Massena Central School Board of Education voted 6-1 against the New York Power Authority’s proposed license review agreement.

Trustee Kevin Peretta was the only vote for the measure. He is the board’s liaison with the Local Government Task Force, which has been negotiating the deal with NYPA. Board Vice President Ron Faucher and Trustees Loren Fountaine, William Sommerfield, Lori MacKenzie, Pat Bronchetti and Paul Haggett voted no. Board President John Boyce and Trustee Pat Serguson were not at the meeting.

The board heard arguments for and against the deal, which was to bring to a close the review of the 2003 St. Lawrence FDR relicensing agreement between the school district, municipalities in Waddington, Massena, Louisville, St. Lawrence County and NYPA.

Peretta told the board that although he doesn’t think the area is getting a fair shake, but felt they should take what they can get. A summary of the deal is included at the end of this story.

A large part of the issue is that NYPA took large chunks of waterfront property off the tax rolls when it built the power project and municipalities and schools need the tax revenue, which they aren’t getting from Albany or NYPA.

“The 2003 agreement … wasn’t the best,” Peretta said. “It’s a very tangled web of politics and legal issues … we came to find out … we don’t have the funds to fight New York state.

“The political muscling, the innuendos, the threats … the talk of prison closures and the [St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center] … that was very clear.”

Despite the rough road, Peretta said the board should take the deal and try for a better settlement in another 10 years. The 2003 agreement calls for new talks each decade.

He suggested the LGTF, which is comprised of elected officials that cycle out every few years, create a document to be passed down and updated with each new round of negotiations.

“We need to maintain a continuity so newly elected officials have a jumping-off point, so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” he said.

Mark Scott, a former Waddington town supervisor and LGTF vice chair, told the board that if they don’t feel they’re getting a fair shake, vote it down. It will keep negotiations open and at least give the LGTF a shot at getting a better deal.

“If you accept the proposal, the review ends. You have to wait another 10 years,” he said.

Scott condemned NYPA’s negotiating tactics, referring to them as “heavy-handed” and “disturbing.”

“It was not negotiated in good faith. It was a take-it-or-leave-it deal,” he said. “It needs to stop all of these threats … How abhorrent is that? It’s so disturbing,” he said.

He believes that the school district has nothing to lose by turning down NYPA’s proposal.

“Massena Central School District will get the same state aid if voted down,” he said.

Part of the deal had called for NYPA to look into energy efficiencies for the district, but Scott said that isn’t anything special.

“These energy programs are always around,” he said, adding that they can start the process on NYPA’s website. “You can apply with no cash up front.”

He is hopeful that Northern New York will be able to someday reap benefits similar to Western New York, where NYPA operates the Niagara Power Project. He said the municipalities there can take unused power and monetize it, sometime to the tune fo $20 to $30 million per year. Here, it is put back into the grid.

“They (Western New York) had elected officials at the state, federal, local level that went after the power authority. They have a backbone. We need a backbone,” Scott said.

A summary of the tentative agreement released by NYPA:

• Up to $5 million in funding for an economic development and strategic marketing and global search study by a top-tier management consulting firm to assist the LGTF communities to identify and attract businesses and industries. The study will include identifying alternatives to deploy and leverage existing monetary and power resources;

• The use by businesses and farms in St. Lawrence, Jefferson and Franklin counties of a large portion of hydropower—239 MW—that Alcoa temporarily relinquished at its Massena operations. The low-cost power will reduce electricity costs by a total of $10 million a year for up to three years;

• Initiation of an energy efficiency and renewable energy-savings program for LGTF government and school buildings that will include $1.5 million in grants to fund energy audits for identifying opportunities for reducing energy costs. The program will be aligned with the Governor’s statewide BuildSmart NY initiative for reducing energy use in public buildings by 20 percent by 2020;

• Funding support for emergency response infrastructure and services, anticipated for Massena Memorial Hospital, Louisville Company #2, and the Massena and Waddington rescue squads, with the amount to be determined by an ongoing study;

• Improvements to an emergency access road to Wilson Hill Island in the Town of Louisville and an evaluation of improving access to town property in the vicinity of the Iroquois Dam, part of the St. Lawrence-FDR project;

• Annual financial support for the maintenance of identified roads in the vicinity of the hydroelectric plant that are used by NYPA for its operations;

• Hiring an independent recreational facility consultant to assess possible measures for increased recreational boating opportunities and fishing tournaments to support additional tourism, with NYPA committing up to $7.5 million for the improvements;

• Additional funding of $1 million for a shoreline stabilization program for landowners adjacent to St. Lawrence-FDR within the Towns of Waddington, Louisville and Massena, with elimination of current restrictions on the length and cost of the erosion mitigation initiatives; and

• Working with the LGTF, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and outdoor fishing clubs to identify additional opportunities to enhance walleye spawning in upstream tributaries of the St. Lawrence River.