Archive: News

The Lansing Town Board unanimously approved new road and culvert specifications that will shift some responsibility for creating high quality new roads from the Town to developers.  The specifications will require developers to include a base course and a top coat to new roads before dedicating them to the Town.  Officials noted that will raise the cost for developers, but will bring down later costs for taxpayers.

"There have been road specs for 25 years," said Deputy Highway Superintendent Charlie 'Cricket' Purcell.  "But not good ones.  The biggest thing we've got to talk about is pipe sizing and things like that.  Pipe sizing is always an issue, but when somebody comes in this this puts it all in black and white for their engineer."

The Village of Lansing Board of Trustees voted Monday to approve new water rates paid to the Southern Cayuga Lake Intermunicipal Water Commission (Bolton Point).  The 2% rise from last year's rate includes a minimum quarterly charge of $44.40 for 10,000 gallons whether they are consumed or not.  Mayor Donald Hartill says that half of Bolton Point's customers subsidize heavier water users to the tune of $300,000, or 7% of Bolton Point's current $4.2 million budget.  Hartill argues that is unfair.

"Right now many senior citizens are using less water," he said.  "Half the customers of Bolton Point use less than 10,000 gallons per quarter.  Many of the people in that category are people with fixed incomes.  Having a fixed fee and paying by the thousand gallons does the things that you'd like to do.  It forces conservation.  Some of the big users, Ithaca College, for example, are subsidized by this process to the tune of about $30,000 per year.  It's on the pricey side in terms of what you and I pay for the minimum charge."

Legislature Approves White Collar Labor Agreement, Sets Management Salaries
The Legislature ratified a new, three-year collective bargaining agreement between Tompkins County and its White Collar Unit (Civil Service Employees Association, Civil Service Employees Association, Local 855), the County’s largest employees union.  Approval came without dissent, with Legislator Dan Klein abstaining since a family member is covered under the White Collar contract.  Legislator Kathy Luz Herrera was excused.  Union membership ratified the tentative agreement July 30.

The agreement, which covers the years 2015 through 2017, provides wage increases of 2.25% for each of the three years, with provisions retroactive to January 1 of this year for those on the payroll as of the date of the ratification agreement.  The new contract succeeds the prior bargaining agreement with the White Collar Unit, which expired as of the end of 2014.

The Legislature's Public Safety Committee began Monday to consider a request from the Tompkins County Sheriff's Office to appropriate more than $360,000 from the Contingent Fund to cover anticipated shortfalls in the 2015 budget related to overtime expense in the Road Patrol and Corrections Divisions, and inmate boardout costs.

County Administrator Joe Mareane told the committee that financial projections anticipate those significant deficits in 2015 and what will be needed to balance those accounts over the rest of the year.  The projections, he said, reflect what is known and assume a level of restraint, as is possible, going forward.  He told the committee that the adjusted overtime cost for Corrections, approximately $368,000 would be roughly in line with the actual expense for 2014, and the adjusted Road Patrol cost would increase the overtime line by $98,000 to about $440,000, about $63,000 more than the actual expense in 2014.  He observed that such adjustments in past years had typically been made at year's end.

Tom Reed called for accountability from China as the government continues to manipulate its currency to stave off recession and hurt the United States' economy. "China's business practices are unfair to American workers and businesses," said Reed. "I care about having a fair and level playing field for America. We can win here and around the world as long as China, and every other country, plays by the rules."

The move by China will artificially lower the cost of Chinese goods below market value, making it more difficult for American goods to be sold in markets around the world. This negatively impacts American exporters including domestic manufacturers and will ultimately cost American jobs.

The Caroline Town Board voted unanimously August 12th to pass a resolution opposing the repowering of the Cayuga Power Plant and supporting upgrading of transmission lines.  Caroline officials said that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change.  But Lansing legislators had a different take on the Caroline vote.  Former Lansing Councilwoman Connie Wilcox told the Lansing board Wednesday that she was appalled by the Caroline vote.

"I don't think you, as a board, has taken a vote on what should go on in somebody else's town," she said.  "The Town of Caroline unanimously voted last week that the power plant should be closed.  I have to commend you that you don't get involved in everybody else's business.  I think it is very unprofessional.  It's like when the city council votes to condemn the war in Iraq.  What purpose does it serve?"

The Legislature's Planning, Energy, and Environmental Quality Committee today passed on to the full Legislature a recommended resolution that would have the Legislature ask New York State to perform an assessment regarding the health and environmental risks associated with large-scale new natural gas pipelines and compressor stations.  The measure supports a position taken in June by the American Medical Association advocating legislation to require a comprehensive health impact assessment regarding what the AMA cites as the health risks of such natural gas infrastructure.

The recommendation states that "Tompkins County joins the AMA in recognizing the potential impact on human health and the environment associated with natural gas infrastructure and requests New York State to perform an assessment regarding the health and environmental risks that are associated with natural gas pipelines."

The Town of Lansing has been struggling with having money in the bank.  Or, to be more precise, struggling with how to manage the money it has in the bank.  The Town has about $3 million in fund balance, but no real plan for managing it.  Town Supervisor Kathy Miller has been trying to establish a policy for managing the money for more than two years, but the Town Board has not been able to agree on a fund balance policy, or even on whether the Town needs such a policy.  They do seem to agree that the fund balance has grown quite large.  And that has prompted ongoing discussions about how to manage the money.

"I don't view this as a partisan thing," Miller says.  "When you go to the state training sessions you don't know if you are sitting there with Republicans or Democrats.  The questions that come up are very good.  You hear about towns that have been in trouble and are there to try to figure out how to get out of it.  Those are the stories you pay attention to.  I don't want Lansing to go there.  I want to put us in a position so that we will never be there."

In a surprise development early this week, 2 more municipalities have passed resolutions opposing gas storage on Seneca Lake in the heart of the Finger Lakes wine and tourism region. The Town of Lyons in Wayne County and the Onondaga County Legislature (13-3) joined 28 other Towns, Counties, Villages and Cities across the Finger Lakes Region, bringing to 30 the number of municipalities representing a total of 1,080,573 NY State residents, firmly opposed to Texas based Crestwood Midstream's proposed industrialization of the Southwest shore of Seneca Lake .

This follows hard on the heels of the 1199 SEIU United Health Care Workers East passing a strongly worded resolution demanding that the NYS DEC deny permits for gas storage on Seneca Lake. The resolution passed unanimously by the Executive Committee of the SEIU and was sent to Governor Cuomo early last week.

Village of Lansing Trustees met with the Planning Board Monday to review a draft of an updated comprehensive plan.  Village officials have been working on updating the plan for two years, gathering information from the old plan, the census, a telephone survey, actual canvasses of Village residents and businesses, and letters and emails sent by residents.  While there are no dramatic changes since the last version of the plan was adopted, a set of goals has been identified that will address changes to the Village over the past decade.  Board members reviewed a compilation of changes and additions at Monday's meeting.

"Our goal was to create a comprehensive plan that would embody the original vision of the Village, which continues to be the Trustees' vision and the Planning Board's vision of the Village as a place where growth and development are planned and managed to produce a built environment that is sustainable, livable and attractive," said Planning Board Member Deborah Dawson.  "We tried to articulate goals that were general enough to support whatever planning and zoning initiatives might become necessary to implement that vision of the next decade."

Travis Hyde Group Selected as Preferred Developer of Old Library Site
The Tompkins County Legislature tonight overcame its prior deadlock at two previous meetings and approved the Travis Hyde Group as preferred developer of the County’s Old Library site, located at the corner of Ithaca’s Cayuga and Court Streets.  Travis Hyde proposes 60 senior-focused market-rate rental apartments, with professional office space and space for the senior services organization Lifelong.

While prior repeated attempts to reach a decision on the preferred developer failed to achieve the eight votes needed for passage, after an hour of discussion, tonight’s proposal to endorse Travis Hyde passed by a vote of 8-5, Legislators Will Burbank, Carol Chock, Dooley Kiefer, Dan Klein, and Leslyn McBean-Clairborne voting no.  Legislator Martha Robertson abstained in all votes related to the Old Library issue.  The action came in response to a member-filed resolution advanced by Legislator Kathy Luz Herrera, who voted no on resolutions considered at the Legislature’s last meeting July 21, a resolution identical to one considered at that time, but which removed reference to a ground lease.  After careful consideration during what she characterized as a long, but productive process, Luz Herrera said that while both Travis Hyde and the competing Franklin Properties project had positive aspects, she decided to support the Travis Hyde proposal “as the best proposal for my county, my community, my city, and the economy.”

A $190,000 firefighter training tower is ready for use, according to Lansing Volunteer Fire Department Deputy Chief Brad George.  George told Lansing Fire Commissioners Tuesday that he has inspected the structure, and is happy with the construction.  The tower, located behind Lansing's Central Station, will be used to train Lansing emergency responders as well as responders from neighboring fire departments.

George and Second Assistant Chief Mike Drake inspected the completed tower last Friday.  While it can be used immediately, firefighters will need special training before they can use it for live fire training.  A company representative is set to come to the site to show emergency responders how to properly use temperature sensors and other equipment, to make sure the department stays within the dictates of the warranty.  Lansing firefighters will also attend a training class on what is required for live burn training.