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Independent PartyIndependent PartyHugh BaharHugh BaharHugh Bahar is challenging incumbents Connie Wilcox and Marty Christopher for one of the two seats that are up for reelection on the Town Board.  Bahar has lived in Tompkins County much of his life, living in the Village of Lansing for about four years in the '90s, and in the Town on and off since 1999.  He is a Senior Engineer at Cornell Utilities Department, and a single parent of a nine year old son.

Bahar was at the forefront of the anti-sewer movement with his nolansingsewers.com Web site, and was outspoken against the now defunct sewer project in this and other publications.  He accused Town Board members, the Town Engineer, and sewer committee members of having special interests that swayed the project, and suggests that killing the project was politically motivated.  He has criticized the Town Board for not soliciting public opinion, but was challenged at the Lansing Democratic Caucus for not attending Town Board meetings to learn the facts of how Lansing is governed and to give his input to the Board.

The Star caught up with Bahar at the RINK, where his son was skating after school one day.  We spoke for about an hour, interrupted by a torrential rain and hail storm that was so loud under the metal roof of the building that we couldn't hear each other.  When the storm passed we picked up where we left off.

Lansing Star: Why are you the best candidate for Town Council, and what unique benefits do you bring to the job?

Hugh Bahar: First of all, I'm not affiliated with a party.  That means to me that if you're in a group on the Town Board, a certain number of them are Democrats or Republicans.  You feel sort of swayed at times to make sure that you don't abandon your party.

LS: Do you think that's true on the local level?

HB: I do to some extent, because these folks meet at county Republican meetings and county Democrat meetings.  I'm not going to say it's an overwhelming pressure, but I think there is often pressure to march with your party, and how they feel and what their values are.  I don't feel I'm attached to that.  It gives me a tremendous amount of freedom to vote my conscience and not have the party complication there.

I also feel to a large extent that integrity is important when you're sitting in a town this small, and when you're living in a town this small, and when you're bumping into people on a daily basis.  I want to make clear that I don't have any attachment in this town to developable land, nor does my family or any of my friends.  So when I'm making decisions on a town level, when I'm casting a vote, it's not for any personal financial interest that I have.  I'm very much detached from that or from any financial organization that has a financial interest in the outcome of a vote.

So in many ways I'm not subject to some of the pressures that other people may be subject to, through family attachments, party affiliations, or friends.  It's not like I don't have any friends (laughs).  It's that I don't have friends that are pressuring me to run for this position because they want to see me do them favors.

And I'm not implying anybody else does, either.  But what I am saying is that that's not where I'm coming from.  So I feel that's a unique freedom that people who have been on the board for a long time, perhaps, don't share.

LS: What interested you in running?

First of all, I think we need to understand what Lansing was 100 years ago.  It was a farming community.  If we lose that we lose our future.

HB: I don't mean to cast this in a negative way, but the first thing that interested me was the absurdity of what was being proposed for the sewer.  Just in terms of the costs to me personally.  And that's where it starts with me.  I'd rather sit at home and rake my leaves and have a glass of wine on the porch than get involved in a dustup.  But the bottom line is when you come after me for what would have amounted to 100% tax increase in the first year for the hookup of the sewer, decomissioning the septic -- that was 100% tax increase for me in the first year.  Then every year thereafter it would have been about a 25% increase.  

And that's just for one EDU.  If you have more road frontage and more lots, that adds a bigger insult to one's income.  I overheard one of the Town Board members say, 'Well we inherited this.'  That to me is not an excuse.  Look, I may have inherited a dusty old rocking chair from my grandmother.  that's no reason to keep it.  if it's time to get rid of something it's time to get rid of something whether you've inherited it or not.

And I understand that they were looking to find funding and other issues, but in a town as rural as we are, even in the southern portion of this town a sewer of that magnitude was way off base from the beginning.  And for them to say there was only a handful of people in opposition to it was absolutely in error.  The poll that they took and the poll that the Lansing Star Online took both indicated heavily that the public was against this.

Yet momentum continued up to the point of them hiring a busty blond facilitator, from what I understand, to try to get the public to jump on board with this.

LS: Basically what really happened is what you are saying should have happened.  There was never any official town council action on the sewer until they killed it.  They said they couldn't get enough money to bring the costs down to where it would be affordable, so they killed it.  What's different between what you are saying and what happened?

HB: I don't know that there is anything different.  Let me explain some more.  I was contacted by e-mail by some folks who heard that when the folks who are now having to run, the incumbents, went out to get their petitions signed, that people looked them in the eye and said, 'I'm not signing your petition unless you tell me you're not voting for the sewer.'  So the explanation of the timing of it is, in my mind, suspect.  That's number one.

Number two, typically the way towns work is when you have a sewer committee that you have assembled and they engage an engineer, they wait for the map and plan.  When that is complete it is looked at by the sewer committee and they make a decision as to whether or not they can recommend approval of the map and plan to the town board.  Once they recommend approval or disapproval, the town board then goes ahead and votes on that.

Well, several steps have been skipped here.  Maybe the obvious thing is that it doesn't matter whether the map and plan is finished or not -- there's no way it's coming in cheaper.  Well, I can buy that argument.  But the appearance is that people went out, got scared they weren't going to get their petitions signed, called an emergency executive session meeting in the morning, went ahead and didn't tell anybody it was about the sewer, made a decision, and then said, 'Oh Dan (Lansing Star reporter), photo-op time.'

The look of all that isn't good.  That's what I'm talking about when I say that not only do we have to act with integrity, we have to act in a way that people don't view what we're doing as having anything less than integrity.  It's not just how you're really acting with integrity, it's does it look like you're acting with integrity.  Looks are just as important in a small town as your actual actions.

So when you add these things up and people start talking, and nobody gets up and says 'Let's be very clear about what happened and why' and let's invite the town to this decision, not just have a Friday morning oh-eight-hundred make a decision and tell nobody about it and then call Dan thing.  Look, that may be what happened and it may be all above board.  But it doesn't look good.  And that's one of the most important things about working in Lansing.  You've got to understand that people understand what we're doing and be transparent.

Now, how did I get interested in running for the Town Board?

When I started to get stirred up about this I put a Web site together, as you know, the nolansingsewers.com Web site.  I was contacted by somebody that is a leader of this community in our county.  That individual said, 'You're a lightning rod for this topic and you need to step forward and take leadership.'  I said, 'That's the last thing I want to do.  I just want to make this thing stop and then I want to go back and sip wine on my porch.'

That individual said, 'Sorry, you're beyond that point.  You need to pick this up and run with it.  That's not your option any more.'  This was an individual I respect telling me this.

So me and Roger Hagen started writing articles to the Journal about how we felt, and contradicting some of the beliefs that people were being told by our Town Board.  That went on for a while and then one thing led to another and people started saying, 'Why don't you run for a town board position so if this thing comes to a vote after you're elected you can have a say in it even though it's only 20% of the vote.  And so for future projects at least we've got somebody in there that says yea or nay on things like this.'

Let me elaborate, just for interest:  I have read all three years of Town Board meeting minutes that are published on the Town Web site.  I don't think that anybody is as boring as me when it comes to wanting to know what's on the Town Web site.  (laughs)

There are a lot of mundane things about being a Town Board member.  Dog barking, swimming pools, who's going to be the lead agency... you know, the stuff that just puts you to sleep!  But 10% is not mundane, and requires, in my mind, independence, judgment, values, and a belief system that you personally hold, where you feel that you have something to say and you want to say it, and you want to listen to what the community has to say, temper your beliefs with that and go forward with a direction.

One of the reasons I'm running for the Town Board is because in the last three years, over 60 meetings, there's never been a defeated vote.  Only two people ever said 'nay' in the last 60 meetings, over hundreds of votes.  What that says to me is that we either have a very integrated and single-thinking group of people, or we have a leadership body that just follows the leader.

Well, if I'm on a town board I aim to find out just which of those it is.  Either we have a very intelligent group of people who really think alike, or do we have a group of people who are being led by an individual or just a couple of people and they're just following suit.  This is what I want to find out.  I want to find out what goes on in the executive committees when they close the door and talk.

LS: What are the top two or three issues facing the Town over the next four years?  And how will you address them?

HB: First of all, there's a comprehensive plan that's on the books.  One of the keystones of this plan is a sewer district.  It's gone.  The sewer district is off the table.  This plan now needs a major rewrite.  It was based on a plan that was originally done, I think, in '95 and then refreshed a couple of times.

They had something like ten committees at one time that represented many, many citizens of this town.  Not like the sewer committee that is kind of a Rotary Club committee, if you ask me, that was not representative of the town.  So this comprehensive plan should be the master plan or guiding document for how the town develops, taking into consideration our rural values, how development needs to go on, the desire to preserve the environment, not lose our farming way of life... this document needs to reflect that.  

Because the sewer was such a major keystone we need to go ahead and rewrite it, and going back to the way we used to do business when we developed these sorts of plans we really need to go out and develop a committee approach using citizens that don't necessarily go to the Rotary Club, that are just like you and me, that are neighbors.  That's the sort of thing I think needs to happen.

A piece of that is the inclusiveness piece.  We need to not sit back and wait for people to come into the Town Hall to express their opinions.  Of course a lot of that does happen when there's a hot issue or when people have a special interest in what's going on with a consolidated water district or something.  Or want approval for their subdivision, or want their new road named such and such, or want their neighbor's barking dog shut up.  People come to the Town Hall for all these things.

But when we go to develop something like this, or we go to the Town hall and have important decisions coming up, important votes, especially when they are going to affect peoples' financial situation, where it's going to affect the tax base... I think we really actively need to solicit town opinion.  We need to try to get scientific polls, or something that has legitimacy to try to get the feeling of where the town is on these issues.

Taxes are a huge issue.  If I were to say, 'What's number two?' it's taxes and how do we make sure they don't go up?  Well, we make sure that we vote on things people will pay additional taxes for, and not things they won't.  So we have to solicit their input.  We have to keep the Town of Lansing taxes to an increase that is only based on inflation.  If we go above that we really need to sit down and solicit the town on what we want to do.  And when we solicit them it has to be a part of the vision that comes out of this comprehensive plan.  It has to be tied to it.

To me the town center is the Village of Lansing.  If you want to have a Laundromat next store and a liquor store next store, and be able to walk to the movies, go live in the Village of Lansing.

The final thing is that we need to look at our environment when we're developing this plan.  I would hate to see Kingdom Farm become just a huge housing complex.  There are some really rich soils in that district that I feel we should continue to encourage, along with the State of New York, to be an agricultural area.  Farming and farms need to stay in this community.  I don't want to see them leave and be taken over by the northward-moving sprawl.

They talk about developing a town center.  Well, to me the town center is the Village of Lansing.  If you want to have a Laundromat next store and a liquor store next store, and be able to walk to the movies, go live in the Village of Lansing.  But I don't think we need another town center. I don't think we need to invest in that kind of infrastructure given the tax situation in New York and Lansing right now.  It's just too heavy an investment in infrastructure to do that.

LS: That segues into the next question, which is how do you see the future in terms of growth and planning?

HB: I'm not saying this position won't change over time.  First of all, I think we need to understand what Lansing was 100 years ago.  It was a farming community.  If we lose that we lose our future.  We need to preserve the farming portion of what Lansing is.  With New York State, will federal funds, with small farmer aid, with whatever we can do, we need to preserve farming.  I truly believe that's the community we are and the community we need to remain.  Once we say there are certain parts of the community we're going to preserve, then what are we going to do with the balance of the community?  So farming doesn't impact it negatively, and so it doesn't impact farming negatively?

What needs to happen after we preserve the farming areas is say, 'what of the environmental areas that we're also going to preserve?'  Then how are we going to watch that growth happen?

I think forced growth is a big mistake.  In Brazil where they made Brazilia in the center of the country -- I feel that's a big mistake.  You're forcing things to happen.  The way I see growth happen -- and I am participating in the Campus Master Planning at Cornell University on the utilities part of it -- you develop outwards from where your core already is.  The town center already is the Village.  

You develop outward.  It's kind of like little ink blots.  You drop a little blot on the paper -- that's a little development -- and it spreads, and you drop another one and it spreads and creeps into that.  Well, if you do it that way, which is the natural way things grow, it's very organic.  You watch the town grow northward, but you anchor certain areas and keep them ag districts, and keep them protected, and keep them from becoming overrun with taxes so the farmer has to sell out.

Hugh BaharHugh Bahar

We need to preserve our farming heritage, and that to me means that you anchor certain things, and then you allow growth to happen in its natural, organic way.  So if somebody wants to create a strip mall you say, 'Well this is the right place to put it, but this isn't what we want in our neighborhood.  And that's not the way our comprehensive plan says either, based on community input.  So no, we're not going to let you have your strip mall.  We're going to come up with an alternative idea, though.'

There are a lot of good things in this plan, a lot of good ideas, even though it was done in '06.  We need to rejuvinate it and we need to do it with the community behind us.

LS: Sewer is a big tool for controlling growth, but it's not the only tool.

HB: But a sewer can happen.  Right now there's the (Warren Road) industrial park that wants a sewer, and they can do a study themselves.  If we grow organically, that happens organically.

You may say that's not the most economic way to put in a sewer.  Maybe it's not, but in my mind it's much better than having a stranded investment for 38 years that only gets partially used in the meantime.  That, to me, is silly.  So you develop the infrastructure in short pieces as you have the need for it.  Does that mean you go back and put an 18" main in when you had a 12" one?  Yes.  But you're doing it as you need it in ten year pieces, not 38 year pieces.  It makes a lot more sense.

Grow it as the community grows, organically while protecting the anchor points of environment and farms and vistas.  It's much more natural than trying to force a town center or force a town sewer.

LS: How would you control growth?  On the one hand you are advocating town planning, but on the other hand you want organic growth.  They almost seem to be opposites.

HB: Right, but I don't view them as opposites.  If someone wants to build a housing development.  If they say, 'We own this large piece of property.'  And we say to them, 'OK, there's a creek that runs through it.  That's an environmental area.  you can't build there.  There's also a farm nearby that we want to encourage and we call an anchor point.  It's going to create dust... we're not going to encourage you to use the last 800 feet of your land that is close to the farm, because we don't want perpetual conflict.  So what we're going to say to you is that this isn't the sort of development that we think will fit in our community on this piece of land.  If you develop it this way and work with us, so we don't destroy the community, the views, the environmental areas, and the farming heritage, then we absolutely want to work with you to grow a development.'

I think it's completely compatible with organic growth and meeting the needs of this plan.  It can all be handled.  It just needs to be done in a way that we have a vision.  So when somebody comes up and says, 'Hey, we want to develop that piece of land across the street from the Town Hall, which right now is designated for recreational use only, we want to change the zoning so we can put a housing development there, or whatever...' I say, 'Hold it!'  How does that fit in with this?  What things are we violating, and what things are we following in our comprehensive plan?  And how much is it going to cost the taxpayer to put in the infrastructure to support that?  Because I am very much against having taxpayers provide for big capital infrastructure.

LS: A lot of people confuse county taxes, school taxes, etc.  From what I understand the Town has maintained taxes at or below the cost of living rises for many years.  Where do you think the Town falls in the level of responsibility in matching taxes to the level of services?  And is the level of services where it ought to be for a town our size?

HB: You mentioned the difference between school taxes and town taxes.  Whether I'm getting hit by a hammer or a bat it hurts all the same.  So the school is hitting me with a hammer, and the Town is hitting me with a bat.  And part of what's going on is the State's not returning funds to the counties like they used to, and it's not all their fault.

I think the Town of Lansing provides good services right now.  Everything I have seen says yes.  To date, the services provided, maintaining our infrastructure, keeping the roads clear, taking care of our parks, making sure that we do a good job maintaining our public buildings -- I think all those things have been done quite well.  I haven't seen anything I can be critical about.

Some of the things they have not done well -- the consolidated water district has angered a lot of people.  People who have paid off the bond, and then they consolidated and were told, 'You have another bond to pay off.'  That is injustice.  It was done under the Town Board that is sitting right now.

There's another water district expansion where the costs have gone way up.  That's not fair and it's not right.

LS: Are you talking about the Algerine and Lansing Station Roads expansion?

HB: I believe that's the one, where it went from $700,000 to $900,000 in a short period of time and they said the absolute rooftop was going to be seven hundred thousand and some.  And now it's beyond that.

LS: But the Town then went out and got a better loan, so those residents are paying less than when they approved the project.

HB: They may have gotten a better loan rate, but the cost has gone way up.  I feel that when we do our estimates, like we did our estimates for the sewer, we've got to be realistic about what it's really going to cost and tell people about it up front.  I think there was a lot hidden in the sewer costs that they weren't saying (were there).  When we go to do an estimate for putting in a water district we'd better be closer.  Part of the accountability is being honest with ourselves about what it's going to cost up front.  And not coming later and saying, 'We have the right to increase the cost as long as it doesn't trip the comptroller trigger.  That to me is not the right approach.

The approach is, let's be honest about the cost in the first palce, get it done when we say we're going to do it, and manage the costs down to the dollar so that we don't come in over budget and over schedule.  That's responsible town government and project management, and that's where I feel I've seen the Town lacking.

But in terms of infrastructure and infrastructure upkeep I think they've done a pretty good job.

LS: You've addressed the service part of it, what about the tax part of it?

HB: If a developer wants to come in and needs infrastructure, and we've sat down with them and said, 'This is what kind of realistic development can come in on the land that you own, given the sensitivities and the nature of our town,' to me the town doesn't build that road.  The developer builds that road.

The developer puts it in to our specifications, puts in drainage to our specifications, the homes are going to get septic, and if we decide to run water out there they have to vote on it and bring it in.  And they're going to pay that bond off.

Once the development meets the standards of what the community feels it needs to meet, expressed in the comprehensive plan or the next revision to it, the developer needs to take care of installing the initial infrastructure.  Once that's done (it is turned over to the town).

LS: But again, on a development by development basis that is what already happens.  The developer builds the road and whatever infrastructure goes with the development, then they give it to the Town after it has been certified that it meets the Town's specifications.

HB: That's what I would expect to happen.

I'm paying over a hundred dollars a week in taxes.  It's killing me.  And that doesn't even include my State taxes and federal taxes and sales taxes and my... everything tax.  It's just killing me.

If we need to put in bigger infrastructure, say linking roads, and the developer says, 'It's not really fair for me to have to front all those costs,' then we have to say, 'OK, is this development something that we really need or want?'  Or can we get outside funding for these roads?  Can we get State funding, County funding for these roads.  We need to look at options, because I am absolutely against further burdening our folks here with more taxes.  I think it's the wrong approach.

If this were South Carolina where the tax rate is much smaller, perhaps I wouldn't have so much resistance to it.  But I'm paying over $100 a week in taxes.  It's killing me.  And that doesn't even include my State taxes and federal taxes and sales taxes and my... everything tax.  It's just killing me.

LS: Do you think services the county provides are adequate?  And if not, what should the Town do about it?  The obvious one is the level of road patrol.  But there are others.

HB: What we do about it is what any municipality should do about it.  You reevaluate your position every few years, redevelop your comprehensive plan, and say, 'We're at the point where we need out own sheriff.  We're at the point where we need whatever it happens to be or this service or that service.'  Or we need our own convenient care out here, or our own ambulance service.  Or we want a store and we want to give them a tax break to encourage them to come.

But this has got to be something that isn't just decided by the Town Board.  it needs to be decided by citizens.  We need to solicit their input, whether it's having the Boy Scouts knock on doors and having people filling out forms, doing cold calls, or actually mailing things to people and getting answers back in as scientific a way as we can, to try to understand what the community feels about this.

Unless, of course, it's breaking some regulatory threshold that say, 'You have so many people so you have to provide this to meet State law,' -- well that's another issue altogether.  There is a lot of regulatory pressure that costs us a lot of money.  So when do we make those investments?  Sometimes it's a decision based on where (the comprehensive plan) is, and sometimes an individual decision based on soliciting our neighbors to find out how they feel about it and what they are willing to pay for it.

LS: I want to ask you to look into your crystal ball and tell me what changes you would like to see in the next 10 to 20 years.

HB: One of the things we need to do first and foremost is continue to hold taxes in check on a town level.  We have to do that to encourage people to stay here... young people leave when they figure out they can't afford to live here any more.  Old people leave when they figure out they can't afford to live here any more.  Poverty increases when people have to pay a lot of taxes and can't afford the homes they live in, and can't get a decent living wage.  We've got to keep taxes down.

From the infrastructure perspective, I think we need to do some work on the 34A / 34B intersection there at Rogue's Harbor, and the truck traffic we have.  It shares a vital artery with the school and with people bringing their children to school.  Accidents are going to happen anywhere, but we need to do something about the congestion created by the mining facilities, the salt and slate and whatever else comes up that road.  We need to do something about that.  I think that includes soliciting for state aid to attempt to fix what I consider to be a fairly dangerous road.  So if by some measure it doesn't meet some standard of safety, or has too much truck traffic by some state measure... let's find out what those could do to help us bring some monies in to help fix that situation.

What else?  Even though I don't encourage a town center it would be nice, at the beginning of the rural area, which is where I live, near Rogue's Harbor, to have a grocery store with a small pharmacy, perhaps.  And I feel the Town needs to encourage that, I really do, whether that's by giving a store tax breaks, or working with the owners of the building to give a lease break to someone who could move in and run a store for us economically until it gets established.  I feel that would be an important thing to have.

Lansing's a great town.  We have parks.  We have great schools.  We have good road maintenance.  Nice neighbors.  Beautiful sunrises and sunsets.  Clean air.  It's a great town.  I'd just like to see my taxes be about half what they are.

  I feel we should do everything we can do to support our schools.  It may not be a direct connection between what goes on in the Town Board and what goes on in the Board Of Education, but I feel we need to do everything we need to do to support them.  (School Board member) David Dittman and I are very like-minded in terms of what we see.  I'm quick to bring out my 'BS stamp' when I see things coming that are just fluff.  I don't like excessive spending.  I am very conservative when it comes to spending money.  Dave and I are on the same frequency.  He's on the Board Of Education, I may be on the Town Board some day.  I don't want to spend money I don't have to spend on fluff.  I want to spend money on things that will give me concrete results right now, whether it's the three Rs, or killing projects that are going to double my taxes.

I want our schools to be strong, I want our town to be strong.  You stay strong by not wasting money, and by making intelligent decisions based on a vision that the town can agree on.

LS: You were challenged by one of your opponents because you haven't attended town meetings to learn what is going on before running for a seat on the board.  A paraphrase is that you were accusing board members for being uncommunicative, but they were saying, 'Well come to the board meetingsand communicate to us.'  You haven't been at board meetings.  What is your response to that?

HB: Like I said before, about 90% of what happens on the Town Board is quite mundane stuff.  About 10% is really quite intense and important -- not that the other 90% isn't important -- but 90% is just the machine running.  About 10% of it is real issues that have serious long-term impact on a more acute level than the day to day running of the machine.  I'm not trying to minimize how important the 90% is.  It's extremely important.  I read the last three years of town meeting minutes.  When it comes time, if I am elected, I will be an important member of the Town Board.  

I will be there not to get along with the Town Board, that's not my goal.  My goal isn't to play nice.  My goal is that we act with integrity, look after the needs of the community and understand the needs of the community.  And not say, 'Well nobody's coming in here, there must be no opinion.'

I'm interested in doing the right thing for the Town, not being a nice guy on the Town Board.  That said, being on the Town Board, if you're going to get positive things done, you have to be a team player and work with the people that are with you, with their strengths and weaknesses.  But I am not going to cave to majority opinions that I feel are not in the interests of the Town.  It's to make sure that our impacts on the Town are reasonable, and have direction.  If the rest of the Town Board sees it that way, we'll get along.  If they have other interests that don't lie in that direction, that are not always in concert with what I feel we should be doing to help the Town move along, then we're not going to get along.  I'll be the nay voter.  I don't want to be a spoiler, but my interests lie with the people here, not with a voting block.

So I will say that if and when I'm elected I will be making the meetings.  Until that time going to the meetings, in my opinion, is 90% mundane.  If I am elected a town board member I will be there for that mundane stuff.  Right now I don't see any need to do it.

Are there things that I am passionate about that maybe I should be there for those meetings?  Probably so.  I'm also a single dad and I'm very jealous of my time.  And I'll be honest about that.  But when I am assigned to a duty I take my duty seriously and I will show up.  

When we were going to the (school) facilities committee meetings -- the first was a sort of ad hoc committee, and the second was a more serious committee -- that wasn't something I was elected to attend, but I attended them because I thought it was important to get my input in.  I made a lot of friends there and got to know a lot of people in the community.

Putting together the Lansing sewer opposition group, I made those meetings as well and organized a lot of people, and I showed up, and I was present, and I felt it was important enough to put a Web site up to get that going.  I have a lot of motivation and I have a lot of internal energy.  I'm an internally driven person, not externally driven.  If and when the Town Board becomes a part of my life I will become a part of it.  I'm independent, unattached to financial commitments that may sway my vote, and as interested and participative as I have been on the facilities committees and other aspects of the Town.

So I'm not going to defend the fact that I've only been to one Town Board meeting.  I'm not going to make any excuses for it.  If the time comes that I become an elected member I'll be there.  And I'll be there with gusto, I can promise you that.

LS: Is there anything else you would like to add?
 
HB: Lansing's a great town.  We have parks.  We have great schools.  We have good road maintenance.  Nice neighbors.  Beautiful sunrises and sunsets.  Clean air.  It's a great town.  I'd just like to see my taxes be about half what they are.

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