Leaders in a tiny upstate town Monday threw cold water on a castle-owning proprietor’s plan to convert his financially struggling hotel in the heart of their downtown into a migrant shelter.
“While I understand that the migrants are in a challenging situation in the large cities, how will the situation be improved in a small village in a small town without any municipal transportation and with limited healthcare?” Massena Town Supervisor Susan Bellor said to The Post.
Town of Massena board member Debra Willer said, “This was a complete surprise for us.
“I cannot speak for the entire board, as we have yet to discuss it as a group, but it does raise numerous questions for us,” she said.
Upstate hotel owner Gary Melius, who operates the renowned historic Oheka Castle hotel and catering hall in Huntington, Long Island, told The Post on Sunday that he has offered his Quality Inn in Massena to New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ administration to house migrants.
City Hall told The Post it is reviewing Melius’s offer to house migrants in Massena — which is in St. Lawrence County near the Canadian border and has a population of 12,000 people — in exchange for government payment.
There are more than 56,000 migrants currently in New York City’s shelter system — with hordes still arriving daily.
But St. Lawrence County officials said Melius’s bid is clouded by the fact that he’s been a tax deadbeat, owing the county and Massena $380,000 in back taxes over three years.
St. Lawrence County filed to foreclose on the Melius property in November and won a court judgement in June, said county attorney Steve Button.
“As of this moment, we are the owner of the property,” Button said.
He said Melius has until Thursday to pay up.
Melius said he paid the $380,000 in taxes Monday.
He said the hotel has been hemorrhaging $250,000 a year because of a lack of business and claimed an influx of migrants backed by New York City funds would be a boon for Massena as well as his bottom line.
“It’s not going to impact the town. The town is dead. There’s nobody in the town. It’s a ghost town,” said Melius, who famously survived an assassination attempt outside his Oheka Castle in 2014.
“They need something to bring infusion. It ain’t going to hurt Massena.”
Button, the county lawyer, said local officials “had no clue” about Melius proposal to convert the Quality Inn into an emergency migrant shelter until reading The Post report.
But he pointed out St. Lawrence County had already declared an emergency regarding migrants after seeing an increase in asylum-seekers coming across the northern border with Canada.
“We did not anticipate a flood of migrants coming from our south,” Button said.
Massena Town board member Patrick Facteau said officials can’t block a business transaction by the hotel to accept migrants — and suggested housing asylum-seekers there might not be a bad idea.
“Maybe we can put people to work,” Facteau said. “We need to move forward and do something in this town.”
The Big Apple is scrambling for new places to put the unrelenting influx of migrants.
Adams on Monday confirmed a migrant shelter will be built for 2,000 men on Randall’s Island’s kiddie soccer fields.
Dozens of adult migrants also were relocated to McCarren Park in Brooklyn over the weekend, and City Hall and emergency officials are eyeing other park sites.
An encampment has been set up on the grounds of the state Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens Village, too, and the mayor has imposed a 60-day limit on shelter stays for migrants to relieve space constraints.
Adams has redirected some migrants to some suburban and upstate hotels but also faced fierce resistance from local residents and elected officials who claim they are not not equipped to handle the influx.