Leon was elected to a four-year term on the North Elba Town Council this past November, and he’s been serving on both the village board and town council up until last week. Since the election, Leon has said that he’d leave the village board once budget talks with the town council started this fall — he and Devlin said they feel serving on both boards during budget talks would be a “conflict of interest.”

While the town doesn’t plan to hold meetings about its budget until October, according to Leon, he said scheduling and informal conversations among town councilors about the budget are already happening. He thought it would be appropriate to step away from the village board now.

Leon’s term on the village board was set to end in March 2023, leaving just over six months in his term and six months before the voters of Lake Placid can elect a new village trustee to take his place in the general election in March. In the meantime, Devlin has the power to appoint someone to finish Leon’s term. If the person Devlin appoints wished to serve a full four-year term, they would have to petition to run in the March election along with any other people interested in running for the village board.

While Devlin doesn’t need the village board to ratify his temporary appointment, according to municipal law, Devlin said that he and the rest of the board have discussed potential candidates — which Devlin declined to name — to finish Leon’s term. Devlin hopes to appoint someone to fill Leon’s vacancy within the next month.

Leon served as a village trustee for more than 13 years. After losing an election bid for trustee in March 2009, Leon was appointed on May 4 of that year to fill in for Peter Roy, who had resigned a month earlier. Leon successfully ran for trustee again in 2011, 2015 and 2019.

Two village board vacancies will be on the ballot in March, including Leon’s. Trustee Peter Holderied, whose third consecutive term will end in 2023, won’t be eligible for reelection in March. The village’s trustee positions are four-year terms and can’t be filled by the same person for more than three consecutive terms.

Leon said he wanted to stay on the village board longer, specifically so he could have been involved with the village’s conversations about new short-term rental regulations from start to finish. Leon said he was frustrated that the village didn’t start its discussions about STRs until July, when the board began scheduling bi-weekly special meetings to discuss the rentals. The village started a six-month moratorium on issuing new STR permits started in March with the intent to form new STR regulations during that time.

“I was kind of hoping that the conversation would have started a little bit earlier than it did,” Leon said.

Now, the village board wants to extend its moratorium for residential areas in the village through the end of 2022 as board members work to solidify their direction on new STR regulations and approach the administrative processes required — including holding a public hearing and seeking county approval — before the new regulations can become law.

The village held a workshop session on Tuesday, Sept. 13, and Devlin said the board plans to further discuss its STR recommendations and schedule a future town hall meeting — where people could vocalize their thoughts about the village’s STR regulations — at the session. The village’s next regular board meeting is at 5 p.m. on Sept. 19, which will be preceded by a public hearing on the village’s proposed partial moratorium extension at 4:30 p.m.