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Members of Lansing's Board of Education (BOE) and an ad-hoc committee of residents, staff and faculty began the third of four scheduled public meetings at the Lansing School Bus garage Wednesday night. Lou Vargas who runs the garage gave the Board and committee a short tour of the facility to explain the need for improvements that are planned as part of the $29 million base proposal to improve the schools and facilities. The maintenance facility is responsible for maintaining Lansing School district’s fleet of over twenty school buses and mini-vans to transport students to and from school and trips to sporting and extracurricular events.

The current building consists of new three bay addition that was added in 2002 and a smaller 1 bay garage with an office, break room and two bathrooms built in 1958. The older building office area is badly in need of replacement due to heavy water damage and crumbling foundation. The current proposal calls for a replacement of the old office with a new one and training room with toilet facilities. In addition is the need for a second 50,000 lb lift which will help the district maintain its required semi-annual checks on all of its buses without having to rely on outside service facilities during peak usage. The garage also needs new diesel fuel pumps to replace an existing faulty pump one that is well beyond repair as well as fire suppression systems for its gasoline tank.

After the garage tour, the Board and the ad-hoc committee reconvened at the high school library to discuss the site plans presented by Greg Horst from King & King Architects. The purpose was to review changes to the roadways and site design to help address the problems with traffic bottleneck and parking. The base proposal addressed some traffic issues at the middle school and elementary school with a new parking lot replacing the pond in front of the high school. Horst also presented two “optional” plans, which, among many things, calls for more parking, relocation of the baseball field from its current middle school site to another site behind the elementary school and utilization of space for additional parking at the site of a former restaurant on Ludlowville Road and 34b. There were several enhancements to the roadway between the schools designed to improve traffic flow. These options were not part of the base proposal study and represent an additional 4.7 million dollars cost to the overall project.

There was a brief discussion on staffing impact, which included adding new custodial staff to support up to the projected additional 80,000 square feet at both high school and middle school at a cost of $22,125 per custodial employee.

At the request of some residents from the previous meeting, a more detailed cost breakdown of each proposal for each school building was handed out and discussed in line-item fashion. As in the previous meetings, Kirk Narburgh and his team from King & King Architects was on hand to answer questions about each line item questioned by many residents and some district staff. There is still a lot of concerns about the impact on property assessments which can range from $174 per $100,000 assessed value up to $230 per $100,000 assessed value depending on which of the three proposals are included in the project. Most vocal were the senior residents who are already struggling with the current tax rates with their fixed income and high cost of living in this area.

The teachers, especially the art and music programs as well as the principals of both schools, John Gizzi and Michelle Stone continue to defend the proposals, even with their projected costs and impact on taxpayers. Some residents also defended the proposal, but still expressed concerns about impact of other projects like the County Sewer project whose impact on property assessment are still unknown.

The 4th and final ad-hoc meeting will be next Wednesday, Jan 25th at the High School library, beginning at 7:00 PM. Residents are welcome to attend and provide input to the board and architects.

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