BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

STOCKHOLM – The Democratic candidate for District 11 believes the county Board of Legislators high employee turnover and repairing roads and bridges are important issues going into the future. She says it could also be a possible solution to repairing crumbling county roads and bridges.

Democrat candidate Suzanne Fiacco of Stockholm is a teacher of physics and middle school science at Colton-Pierrepont Central and has served on the Norwood-Norfolk Board of Education for four terms, currently in her 11th year.

District 11 includes the Town of Stockholm and the eastern portion of the Town of Potsdam, and the eastern quarter of the Village of Potsdam.

Fiacco sees employee turnover as a big problem and thinks the board could possibly remedy that with using money out of the fund balance to offer salaries that are more competitive with other entities.

"I believe a lot of the turnover is due to the salaries not being competitive. It's like we're a training center. We train them and then they leave for higher paying jobs,” Fiacco said. "We need to provide all departments in the county with necessary staffing.”

She added the county should work to keep a fund balance that’s still healthy, while keeping open the option to spend some of it for important projects like road repair and bridge work.

"We need to ensure a proper balance between the county savings, while taking care of priority projects like repaving our county roads and repairing our crumbling bridges,” she said. “That is not being done now, and that needs to change.”

The county is renegotiating their sales tax distribution formula, which largely hinges on whether the City of Ogdensburg will continue to participate at the county level, or enact their own collection and distribution formula.

Fiacco wouldn’t say whether she thinks the county should increase or decrease its share, but thinks the board’s objective should be to ensure each municipality gets the share its entitled to. She is hoping the ongoing U.S. Census could help legislators decide what that should look like.

"The distribution needs to be equitable for each municipality involved,” FIacco said. “Maybe the Census will give us a better idea of that, where the sales tax is generated from.”

"My biggest thing is I want to see a fair and equitable distribution for Potsdam and Stockholm, for District 11," she said. "I wouldn't want it to be anything less than it is now.”

She said she believes her background on the Norwood-Norfolk school board, plus career experience as an educator and expertise in “math and numbers,” goes toward making her a good candidate for the county board.

Fiacco said her record as a school board trustee includes being "fiscally prudent while maintaining and improving programs.”

“All of my experiences, both past and present, have afforded me an understanding of teamwork and what it means to any community, from the tiniest unit, the family, to the school community, and our local communities. It is with these values that I have witnessed and been part of that make me a valuable candidate -- one open to listening and learning, in search of solutions to the needs of its citizens, and the development of sustaining responsible working environments that will promote the prosperity of our community,” Fiacco said. “I enjoy my conversations within the community, together we do our part to place us on the map.”

"I want this a place to be where people want to live, whether they stay here or move here,” she said.

Fiacco comes from a large family, one of 11 members. A North Country native, she has a bachelor of science and a master’s degree in education from St. Lawrence University.