74. create the city of new paltz
Merge the Town and Village into the City of New Paltz, thereby increasing New Paltz’ share of county sales tax revenue, federal aid and aid to police, fire and ambulance services. “City” doesn’t have to mean lower Manhattan; we can show people how to do it right.
100 Ideas for New Paltz 
I’d rather have a Republic of New Paltz. We can unquestionably feed ourselves on our own agricultural output if the USA decides to lay siege. We can finance everything with no outside assistance just by ending our residents’ federal and state taxes, and leave them with lots of extra in their pockets, and they won’t suffer the guilt of illegal wars and the agony of corporate fleecings of the treasury.
On the more realistic side, I don’t know if you’ve fully priced the cost of some of the changes becoming a city would require, vs. the eligibility for reimbursements. This includes the hidden costs of unexpected consequences. You’d have to have a paid fire department. That will require substantial construction costs, because you certainly can’t pull that off with what you have now, and sleepover firefighters require all kinds of facilities that “drive by the alarm” volunteers do not. But beyond the easily calculable elements of your new paid fire service (and it calculates very high), there are morale issues. Check around at the combination departments in Dutchess and even closer to home in Kingston. You’ll have two thirds of your force wondering why one third is getting paid a lot of money and bennies when they’re all doing the same job (the paid ones will be mostly drivers, you’ll still have mostly vollies putting wet stuff on red stuff). You’ll face a huge crisis of morale when the question of whether the chief should come from the ranks of the paid or the vollies comes up. As loss of morale tends towards loss of manpower, you end up having to pay far more firefighters than you originally projected, which makes even more vollies withdraw, and so on. The tendency in these situation is for fire costs to steadily spiral upwards.
I’m all for consolidation. I’m not convinced that city is the way to go. Open to convincing, but not convinced at this time.