VILLAGE OF FAYETTEVILLE – This coming March, a pair of familiar faces will be running for the open position of mayor in the village of Fayetteville. One is Mike Small, a longtime trustee on the village board, and one is Sara Bollinger, a village resident who has served as a councilor on the Manlius Town Board.
Because of a newly instituted ethics law pertaining to dual office holding, former Mayor Mark Olson was made to choose between his mayoral position and his role as Onondaga County legislator for the 10th District. At the start of this new year, Olson stepped down from the seat of mayor he had held since 2004 after being reelected to his legislature seat, leaving the current vacancy to be filled in the village.
Mike Small
Small has served as a trustee for the Village of Fayetteville for the last 22 years, taking on the role of deputy mayor for the past two.
After showing interest in joining the fold, he was first appointed to the position of trustee by former Mayor Henry McIntosh when a previous village board member resigned. Small was then voted back into the seat by the public when the 2002 election came around.
As trustee, Small worked alongside McIntosh for the last stretch of his tenure as mayor and then Olson for the entirety of his time as mayor. He said both men helped him develop as a leader and learn more about what goes into running a village, all while his fellow trustees have prompted him to discuss and contemplate different views and join with them to devise solutions to problems, even if there’s not agreement at first blush.
“It’s certainly been a different experience looking at things from a trustee standpoint,” Small said. “It’s made me look longer term at the bigger picture.”
Small said that serving as deputy mayor has been “rewarding and enlightening.” In that sense, he said that the more involved role has led him to see more closely how projects are funded as he’s become even more directly attuned to how village-wide improvements materialize behind the scenes.
He further said that his liaison appointments have given him insight into the operations, overall impact, needs, and challenges of the numerous departments and groups of the village, including code enforcement, the tree commission and the department of public works, the latter of which he currently communicates with as liaison.
Small said he now seeks to carry his experience, knowledge and dedication to the mayor position, the responsibilities for which he has come to understand to a greater degree as deputy mayor.
If elected mayor, Small said he would intend for fiscal responsibility to be a main focus in spite of any nationwide economic challenges or New York State requirements. Specifically, he said he would make sure to keep village spending under control and the tax rate stable.
At the same time, he said he would see to it that the village’s “top-notch” services, offerings like park events, and the resources for departments like fire stay as they are, or if anything that scaling down of those events or depletion of those resources be prevented if possible.
Making sure his outlook is pinned on both remembering Fayetteville’s past and working toward its future, Small said he would strive to have the village retain its community feel while also looking into affordable housing for younger people starting out and more comfortable options for senior citizens.
Small is running as an independent candidate on the Balance Party line. He said he chose the name of that party and has used it every time he’s campaigned in order to represent “respecting and learning from our past, providing for our current needs, and planning for our future needs.”
He said he believes in “people, not parties” and that the day-to-day services provided by the village to the residents have a nonpartisan connotation.
Small, now 62, is a lifelong resident of Fayetteville. He said he appreciates the history of the village, its parks and schools, and how its neighbors are drawn together to help each other.
He has gotten to know families in the area through his role as manager for the Eaton-Tubbs Fayetteville Chapel of Schepp Family Funeral Homes for more than 40 years.
Working as a funeral director, Small said he has been able to accommodate how people wish to celebrate and memorialize the lives of their loved ones at emotionally difficult times. He said that over the years his occupation has also grown his ability to offer guidance, listen to people’s thoughts and concerns, and empathize with their situations.
For the past several years, Small has been the president of the board for the Manlius Historical Society, an organization that has taught him more about Fayetteville and its neighboring villages in the town of Manlius.
“I’m interested of course in the area here that we live in, and with the historical aspect I’ve been able to gain some more knowledge about different things that I didn’t know 100% about,” he said.
Additionally, he is a member and former chairman of the board of directors for the Fayetteville Senior Center. He said his involvement with the senior center has been enjoyable because he gets gratification from interacting with the visitors, staff and other board members.
Small has twice chaired the comprehensive plan steering committee for Fayetteville, once for the original master plan and later on for the update passed in 2023.
He said being part of the steering committees made him reflect on public input about village happenings and think more about what ideas Fayetteville should incorporate.
“It’s more or less within my nature to be community-minded and spirited, help wherever I can and do what I can for people,” Small said. “That’s what’s led me down the direction of serving on different boards and following through.”
As deputy mayor, Small said he is set to run the regularly scheduled village board meetings until the March election due to Olson’s resignation.
Sara Bollinger
First elected in 2017 and now in her second term as a Town of Manlius councilor, Bollinger currently holds the title of deputy supervisor for the town.
She said that in her time as councilor she has garnered an understanding of the complexities of local government having dealt with “overlapping rules” and “various legal findings that influence what’s feasible at any given juncture” while doing the proper research to determine effective courses of action.
“It has also shown me that change can be made,” said Bollinger. “If you continue to work toward a goal, you can gradually move things in a particular direction.”
Bollinger said that once it became clear that there could be a vacancy for the Fayetteville mayor position, a number of people approached her asking if she would be willing to run for the seat.
Currently, Bollinger is deciding to pass an independent petition for a party called The Bridge.
If elected mayor, she said she would contribute leadership skills and a knowledge of the community that would build on the success of previous village administrations. With that, she said she would “more expansively” engage with residents “on the edges” by making it easier through modern technology to communicate with the village government while also letting those villagers know they have a say.
Bollinger said she would look into expanding the capacity of the village website, such as by having the quarterly newsletter posted on it or by making the site more searchable when it comes to finding documents on topics people want to learn more about.
She said she would also explore alternative ways to share information that have gone underutilized in her view. Along those lines, she said she would make it a priority to rely on the local library, coffee shops, houses of worship and other spots to make sure pertinent information is made easily accessible.
“Not everybody even uses websites,” Bollinger said. “There are people who need different formats for information in order to really be able to follow what’s going on and make it known what they would like to see go on.”
Bollinger said she would additionally bring balanced management to the village budget while overseeing personnel.
“I want to promote the work of all the village departments but also assess the return on investment and see that we’re being wise with investments,” she said.
Bollinger said further that she wants to do work to heighten the environmental sustainability of village operations as a way to potentially reduce costs and protect the environment at large.
Knowing that the three mayors in the town have met for a purposeful sitdown at least once monthly, Bollinger said she would be able to slip into that routine easily because as a town representative she has already worked closely with Manlius Mayor Paul Whorrall and Minoa Mayor Bill Brazill.
Bollinger was on the most recent comprehensive plan steering committees for the Town of Manlius and the Village of Fayetteville. She said that both committees allowed her to sharpen her responsiveness to resident concerns and interests regarding business development, connectivity of parks and trails, bikability, pedestrian safety and traffic issues.
In Fayetteville’s case, she said she would hope to more visibly implement the village’s updated plan by seeking funding to expand local parks and trails, by working with the code enforcement officer to reinvigorate structures that have been vacated, and by helping residents struggling with upkeep while making sure every part of the village reflects a desired community character.
“There’s a plan already in place to implement a zoning code review so I would want to see that continue,” Bollinger said. “One of the other things I would like to do is take some of the learnings from the Reconnaissance Level Historic Resources Survey and look into either expanding or adapting some of the historic district based on the recommendations of that study.”
Though she has not sat on Fayetteville’s village board prior to her announcement that she would run for mayor, Bollinger has had her own vantage point not only as a town councilor, but as the town’s liaison to the village and as a Fayetteville resident for over 20 years.
“I’ve been following the Village of Fayetteville for a long time in terms of being aware of the different issues that come before the trustees and the kinds of objectives the trustees are trying to pursue,” she said. “Because I’m not currently a trustee, there may be individual details or processes that I would need to learn as a mayor, but I don’t think any of that would be beyond my ability to pick up on pretty quickly.”
She added that her separate liaison appointments over time to the town’s highway department, fire and EMS, and budget & finance have been beneficial for learning how individual municipal departments conduct their work.
As for the Fayetteville Fire Department, Bollinger said, “I appreciate their strategy to work in collaboration with Manlius and hopefully in the future Minoa to share expenses and integrate services so that we keep the costs down. That’s a big concern of mine that we provide the protection levels that are needed without spending too much money.”
She said her relationship with the town’s highway department has prepared her to understand the value of the DPW in Fayetteville because for both departments issues concerning equipment expenses and the search for skilled workers come into play.
For the past 10 years, Bollinger has been running her own business, SWB Consulting Services, which was named after her initials.
Her experience as a consultant has entailed helping nonprofits write and deliver successful grant applications—something she said would play a significant role if she were to be mayor. She also assists organizations by showing them how to boost traction for their programs, how to better navigate the hiring process, and how to bounce back from inner division and other obstacles.
Bollinger said her business also supplies her with a flexible-enough schedule to attend daytime meetings if required.
In previous years, Bollinger served as the executive director for Enable before it combined with Transitional Living Services of Onondaga County, which she worked for as well, to form what would be AccessCNY. She was also president of the New York State Association for Rural Health.
She said those roles taught her how to manage meetings, engage with a diverse audience, and listen to people’s requests and worries.
Bollinger said she has enjoyed residing in Fayetteville because of its heavily felt historic element, its parks, its shops and restaurants, and its walkability for dog owners like herself.
She said it’s important to preserve the village’s “vibrant atmosphere” and the “great sense of community” she sees in places like the Brooklea neighborhood and the upper village neighborhoods.
Bollinger said she received the legal opinion that the roles of town councilor and village mayor would be “incompatible” if held simultaneously. She said she will resign from her position on the Manlius Town Board if elected mayor of Fayetteville.
