Katie Brennan — who was appointed to the village board this past November to fulfill former Trustee Jason Leon’s term, which is set to end in March — has decided to run for a full four-year term on the independent “Lake Placid Together” line. Leon resigned from the village board this past October after being elected to the North Elba Town Council in November 2021.

Andrew Quinn, a Keene Valley native and 20-year Lake Placid resident, said he wants to serve as a trustee now that he has more time to devote to the village. Quinn owned the former Desperados Restaurant on Saranac Avenue for 26 years. He is running on the independent “Integrity Party” line.

The seats up for election belonged to Leon and Trustee Peter Holderied, whose terms end in March. Holderied is not eligible for reelection because he’s reached the village board’s term limit — three consecutive terms. Leon was also serving his third and final consecutive term on the village board.

While Brennan and Quinn are the only two people to officially file petitions for candidacy — which were due on Tuesday, Feb. 14 — voters will also have the option to place write-in votes on the ballot.

Election Day is March 21. Lake Placid residents can vote from noon to 9 p.m. in the first-floor meeting room of the North Elba Town Hall.

Katie Brennan

Brennan, 43, said serving on the board for a few months has been both a “learning curve” and a benefit. She said she wants to continue serving on the board and use her background as an economist to analyze village issues — like short-term vacation rentals and upgrades to the local water plant and electric infrastructure — using available data and evidence to build strategies for solutions.

Brennan works remotely for Vermont-based nonprofit MVP Health Care. Originally from Lake Placid, Brennan traveled to London for graduate school and spent 17 years in the United Kingdom before returning to this village with her family in August 2021. She’d spent some time before joining the board volunteering with the Lake Placid-North Elba Community Development Commission, and she’s continued to work with the CDC during her time on the village board.

On Wednesday, she said she wants to continue assessing what this community needs and wants, noting an upcoming community needs work from the CDC. She said she’s used to working with teams to analyze data and come up with any necessary solutions, and she believes the village’s staff and volunteer boards come together to make the village’s operations effective. Still, she said, there’s always room for improvement.

“It will be interesting to see if we can start to look at some of that evidence and see how and if it’s useful,” she said.

Andrew Quinn

Quinn, 59, said he’s interested in supporting the community’s youth and elderly populations. Quinn said he coached youth baseball and soccer in Lake Placid.

“We have to take care of our elderly, and we have to make sure that youth have a place to live in the future,” he said.

He said he doesn’t have specific goals related to those issues yet; he said he’d want to get acquainted with the issues as a trustee first.

Quinn has an associate degree in forestry from Paul Smith’s College and a bachelor of science from SUNY Plattsburgh. He was a member of the Keene Volunteer Fire Department for 20 years and served as a member of the Keene Town Council in the 1990s before moving to Lake Placid in 2001. He’s served as an Essex County Commissioner of Jurors since 2017.

As a village trustee, Quinn said he’d want to keep village taxes down and improve the village’s water, electric and fiber optic infrastructure. He also wants to examine situations that come before the board on a case by case basis rather than reaching for blanket solutions. For instance, when it comes to providing affordable housing in Lake Placid, he mentioned that inflated building prices as one factor that has affected the affordability of housing.

“It’s something that I don’t want to touch on until we look at what’s going on,” he said of issues like affordable housing.

He believes the village should be “mindful” of too much development for the tourism industry.

“So we don’t tear down houses in the village and put up hotels or anything else,” he said.