BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

MASSENA -- The village has nullified their agreement to sell the former South Main Street DPW site to St. Lawrence Soyway.

Mayor Tim Currier said the village board was wise to pass the motion to avoid any potential future misunderstandings with the company.

St. Lawrence Soyway in 2017 announced plans to buy the old DPW site and open a soybean processing facility that would employ about 30 people.

"They have since, of course, informed us they are looking at other sites in the Town of Massena. It still has to come to fruition," Currier said. "We're free to do whatever we want with that property."

Selling the old DPW meant the department had to find a new place to store bulk sand and salt. They chose a lot on Robinson Road which they now use. That led to outcry from the area residents who said they didn't want the increased truck traffic and potential disturbances that come along with running a DPW facility.

Tom Seguin, who lives in that area, told the board on Tuesday night that he isn't happy with how it turned out, but wants to move past it.

"At the end of the day you did exactly what was planned from day one," he told the board during public comment. "I want to close this chapter and unfortunately we don't like the way it turned out. I understand where you gentlemen came from ... it's just a sad situation all around. I'm not criticizing anybody on the board. You listened to all our concerns ... and I appreciate you doing that."

In 2017, St. Lawrence Soyway principal Kenneth Jahre told North Country Now that he had hoped to secure a financing package by that summer and be up and running in the spring of 2018. At the time, he said they weren't having trouble finding financing but were hoping to get a better deal than what they had been offered up to that point.

Jahre in the summer of 2017 said the plant's cost was going to go over their initial $16 million estimate, but the facility he had in mind at the time would have "greater output" than they initially expected.

And at the same time, St. Lawrence County Industrial Development Agency CEO Pat Kelly said their board had approved a $10 million tax-free bond package for St. Lawrence Soyway, once their finances were in order.