LAKE PLACID — The North Elba Town Council is doling out more than $600,000 in funding to local organizations in its fourth round of Local Enhancement and Advancement Fund grants.

The town council last week approved LEAF grants for 10 local projects. Two of the organizations that received funding in previous rounds — Homestead Development Corp. and the town of North Elba — were also awarded funding in the fourth round.

In total, more than $2 million in grants have gone out to local organizations through LEAF since the fund’s inception in 2020.

The grants are funded by revenue generated by the county’s 5% occupancy tax — a tax collected on all hotel, motel, bed-and-breakfast and short-term vacation rental stays in Essex County. From the 5% tax, about 3% goes to the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism and 2% goes into a fund that directs money to each of Essex County’s 18 towns. The county also keeps some of the revenue to pay for administrative costs.

A 10-person committee, comprised of representatives from local businesses, schools and organizations, reviewed each grant submission and presented its recommendations to the Town Council last week. Councilor Emily Kilburn Politi recused herself from the town’s grant approval. Politi is on the board for the Homestead Development Corporation, which received its third grant in this round of LEAF funding.

The 10 organizations approved for funding in the fourth round of LEAF grants include:

¯ Adirondack Film Society, $20,000 for a new filmmaker and residence program

¯ Adirondack Rail Trail Association, $25,000 for local marketing

¯ Adirondack Sports Council, $22,350 for the Mac Pac program, an immersion program available to Lake Placid students K-8 during school closures related to the 2023 FISU Winter World

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University Games

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¯ Essex County Industrial Development Agency, $264,000 for grants to local businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic and construction-related closures on Main Street in Lake Placid

¯ Homestead Development Corporation, $124,975 for the Fawn Valley housing development on Wesvalley Road

¯ John Brown Lives!, $11,500 for its Freedom Story project and Juneteenth celebration

¯ Lake Placid Horse Show Association, $16,000 for new whiskey barrels at the North Elba Horse Show Grounds

¯ Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute, $25,000 for buoys that will aid in a study of shorelines on Lake Placid

¯ Saranac Lake Civic Center, Inc., $50,000 for a lift gate for handicapped access to the center’s mezzanine

¯ Town of North Elba, $48,000 toward new fencing to separate beach volleyball/pickleball courts from the lacrosse fields and to install new gates to keep the town’s landfill and construction and debris pit areas more secure.