Fredonia Mayor Michael Ferguson continued his campaign to increase sharing of municipal services this week.

Ferguson framed consolidation as a necessary effort to keep village government financially viable. He spoke about it at a Board of Trustees workshop.

“I want to talk about the fact that we are still in the first quarter of our current budget, and we have, as elected officials,made a promise to our constituents to work diligently to cut costs and generate more revenue,” Ferguson began. “I think we have found some ways to generate revenue — I still think we have to take a good, hard look at cutting costs.”

The mayor continued, “Cutting costs doesn’t necessarily mean losing jobs, losing people. It means being more efficient. We had a first meeting on going from a fire zone to a fire district, we’ve had discussions with both the Fredonia and the Dunkirk police departments (on a possible shared headquarters), which will continue. We are having discussions with the town of Pomfret on several different projects where we can consolidate, utilize one another’s efforts in a fiscally responsible way.”

Ferguson commented, “It’s always seemed silly to me, as a resident of the village for over 30 years, that I walk into this building and pay my taxes, and walk 50 feet across the street to pay my (town of Pomfret) taxes.”

The mayor added soon after, “I believe it’s our responsibility to look at some of these programs, some of these departments where we can consolidate our efforts. DPW already borrows some of Pomfret’s equipment, they borrow from us. We borrow from the city of Dunkirk, they borrow from us.

“Because if you look at where we are from a budgetary standpoint, we are just going to replicate the same thing over and over unless there are some serious changes.”

Ferguson wound down his speech by stating that, contrary to popular belief, there are many young families in the village — and keeping them here will require the community to “suggest ways, find ways to make us more effective as a government.”