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Republican Mike Sigler served as Lansing's representative to Tompkins County from 2006 to 2010, when he was defeated by current Legislator Pat Pryor.  He has lived and worked in Lansing for ten years.  His daughter is in third grade.  Sigler says taxes are a major issue that needs to be addressed.  He says Lansing will grow, and defending the character of the town while facilitating growth is a major challenge.

Sigler talked to the Lansing Star in his Lansing home Monday to talk about why he wants another term on the Legislature.


Lansing Star: What can you offer voters that your opponent can not offer?


Mike Sigler: I've taken a look at both and I always find that I'm painted as this giant conservative.  I'm painted a certain way -- maybe it's because I ran the (Tompkins County) GOP for a while.  I don't know.  I just don't see every issue as being political.  it seems to me that on the County Legislature everything becomes politicized.

I don't know when that change happened.  Like this power plant.  I don't know why this is a political issue.  I'm not really sure.  It's very black and white to me.  If this plant closes it will be a hardship on the town.  And for other towns to even be voting on it, I find astonishing.

If we cannot get the County Legislature to say 'yes we support the power plant,' the largest taxpayer in the county... that is amazing to me.  I can't believe that.

I can count the people.  You have the three Republicans who I know all support it.  Martha Robertson says she supports it.  That's four, so you're half way there.  Kathy Luz Herrera is a big union person.  I've got to imagine she's on board.  So is Mike Lane a big union guy.  Now he's in a town that voted against it...

Nathan Shinagawa said he was for Dunkirk.  He said he was for the repowering there, so what is he?  Against the repowering in his own county?  I can't imagine that's the case.

So by my count you have eight.  But no, they can't do anything.  I don't understand that.  I think it has to do with something about appealing to that Democratic base that is completely against them repowering that plant.


Your opponent is for repowering it.



She says she's for repowering it.  We don't diverge from there.  She says she wants it.  I want it.



A common criticism of the County Legislature is that it appears to waste a lot of time and effort on issues that are beyond its jurisdiction.


I agree.



What will you do to minimize it and keep the Legislature focussed on Tompkins County?


Legislators are going to bring up what they want to bring up.  People used to complain that I used to fight against certain things.  Like they wanted to impeach George Bush.  Well, alright, I'll fight against impeachment.  I don't think people should really be impeached unless they break laws.

I don't agree with recall elections.  I think you get elected.  You should serve out your term.  If you don't like the person then you vote them out.  Like that recall in California against Gray Davis.  I was never a big fan of gray Davis, but hey, you guys elected him.  That's what you get.  You get him for four years.

I don't know how you combat that, per se.  You have to elect people who say they will just vote on county issues.  That's me.  All politics are local and we have enough going on in the County.

It seems that people on the County Legislature would very much like to make this a full time job.  Apparently they don't want people with normal jobs to be able to serve on the Legislature.  If you're looking for diversity I hope that people look at me and say, 'yes we're going to hire that guy.'  Just to increase diversity.  Right now only two people, I think, have full time jobs.  Maybe three.

You've got Kathy Luz Herrera.  You've got Leslyn McBean-Clairborne.  And I think Frank Proto works at the bank.  I think that's it full-time job-wise.  You don't have anybody besides Leslyn who is under the age of 45... well, besides Nathan.  And I think she's the only one with young children.  So you don't have a whole bunch of diversity there.  You have a whole bunch of retired people who are making decisions for a lot of people who pay a lot of taxes.  It doesn't seem right to me.  I'd think you'd want a broader base of people trying to make decisions.


Do you see any realistic possibility of true mandate relief from Albany?  How effective are our state legislators in pushing for relief and what, realistically, if anything can county legislators do about it?

The number one mandate that's imposed -- and it would be so easy for the State to do this -- is Medicaid.  The County has to kick in 25%.  New York is one of only two states that do that.  That's the number one mandate.  If you take over those and the state pays 50% and the feds pay 50% that would be enormous mandate relief.

Otherwise you can nickel and dime all the little mandates.  The State's always going to do that.  The State is always going to send down mandates and they're not going to pay them because these come out of different funds.  Take school building funds.  If it's a mandate for the school like those electric doors -- they have to have a stop now if they close because of the death in Ithaca.  That was a state mandate, but is the State going to create a special fund to fund all those doors?  No.  They're going to say, 'Schools take it out of your building funds.'


In her January address to the Legislature Chairwoman Martha Robertson said a priority of the Legislature should be to 'make a mark on climate change.'  A proposed ban on so-called T-shirt plastic bags is the latest in a series of county laws that are good for the world but more costly in money and effort to constituents.  My example is garbage tags...


I like the garbage tags.



But even with recycling throwing away trash and garbage is more expensive and more complicated than it used to be.  I am not implying that the world and the environment is not important.  But I am asking if this is the right course for a county government and if Tompkins County is fairly balancing its philosophical mission with the quality of life and day to day needs of its constituents.


It is within the county mandate to do that.

It's just that I think they're wrong.

The plastic bag thing is a good issue.  You have a bunch of people who are saying they are environmentalists, who, frankly, aren't.  Paper bags are not better than plastic bags.  Paper bags come from trees.  You have to cut down a tree to get it.  Or if it is recycled, fine.

All of this is going into a landfill.  Paper bags don't degrade in a landfill.  Nothing degrades in a landfill.  It sits.  You would be able to pull out a phone book from 1950 that's been in a landfill and open it and read it.  Things simply don't break down.  People think of it as a compost -- it's not.  It's a tomb.

So the fact that you have plastic bags versus paper bags makes no sense.  Plus, where are you going to make these things?  They're going to be made overseas and shipped here and then you have that problem.

That issue annoys me because you have a bunch of people who say 'the environment,
the environment, the environment' and they're just not telling the truth.

With Martha with climate change -- I'm sorry.  She's not telling you the truth.  She's saying 'I support doing everything I can for climate change.'  If climate change is that big of an issue for her then she should be in full support of hydrofracking, and she's not.  Because hydrofracking will provide more natural gas, which provides less carbon emissions.  Carbon emissions are the lowest in the United States now since the 1980s.  Why is that?  Because we have fewer coal-fired power plants and more natural gas power plants because we have more natural gas.  I'm sorry, if that's your big issue, if climate change is your big issue then you have to embrace natural gas.

The guy who first identified climate change as being a major issue says yes, natural gas is the way to go. That's the bridge.  We need to embrace that now.

That's the only way you're going to make any kind of dent in emissions.



In the same address Martha said the Legislature would make a mark on unemployment and income inequality.  She said, “In November 2012 the unemployment rate in Tompkins County was 5.4%, or about 3,100 unemployed residents. Those numbers have been fairly stagnant for the last three years.  Although the rate is well below today's statewide number of 7.9%, it's much higher than our typical unemployment rate and is simply not acceptable.”  If elected what will you do to impact these things?

First off we need to get the power plant repowered.  That's 70 good jobs right there.

You've got to look at this as more of a state-wide thing more than just a county thing.  You're going to have to lower taxes.  I'm talking about a serious cut in taxes.

(Governor Andrew) Cuomo can talk all he wants about 'we are leading the country' -- we're not doing any of those things.  The entire middle class of this state is leaving.  You're going to have rich and poor and that's what's going to be left.  Because the middle class doesn't want to be here.  They want to go to Tennessee where there is no income income tax.  They want to go to North Carolina where there's a small income tax and the property taxes aren't killing them.  That's what it comes down to: if you can move to Tennessee and get a 25% boost in income why wouldn't you do that?

It used to be that people would stay in New York State for the schools.  But now the schools are comparable in other places.  They're not the best in New York State any more.  If you look at who's going to college and who's not New York State ranks OK, but we're not like we used to be where you couldn't go to school in Florida because the public schools were that bad.  That's not the case anymore.

People are voting with their feet and they're leaving the state.  It's interesting if you look at the census.  Back in 1960 we were it.  New York was the largest state in the country.  Now we're third.  We're not number one.  We have 18 million people.  California overtook us and never looked back.  And now California's losing people.

I just read an article about New York becoming like a fiefdom.  You're going to have very rich people and you're going to have poor people and the middle class is going to be somewhere else.  That's how I see New York State.


In a recent discussion with Legislator Carol Chock about a proposed law she told me that the legislature does not pass laws that it does not intend to enforce.


Well, we hope!



In that case we were not talking about a felony law and she suggested various agencies that could regulate that particular one, but it got me to thinking about law enforcement in general, the old saw that only three deputy sheriff vehicles patrol 476 square miles at any given time.  Is law enforcement adequately supported by the Legislature?  Do we have enough deputies?

I liked when we had some satellite stations.  I think we still have one out in Newfield.  I think it is.  Granted, we rely a lot on state police, too.  But certainly the Sheriff does what he can.  I find response time to be really good.  Now granted, I live four miles from the Sheriff's Department!

I think our main highways are basically patrolled.  And you have the city and the village departments, too.  I think the Sheriff's Department is a first responder, but it's also to supplement all the different departments.  That's the key, I think, to bring all the different departments together, too.  That's important.


As I look at what various elected officials take credit for on the national and state level I see that many of them do peripheral things that may be nice but do not significantly impact the lives of the people they represent.  What do you see as the top couple of issues that will make a real difference in the lives of Lansing constituents specifically and county residents in general that will you personally want to address and what will you do to address them?

The power plant is number one for Lansing.  It looks like they have a one year agreement and they're working on a longer term one.  But what goes forward?  I've seen power plants close.  They sit there.  They rust.  They rot.  So what is the future?

I went down to the power plant on Thursday and I met with (Upstate New York Power Producers CEO) Jerry Goodenough.  I took a tour of the plant so I feel like I'm pretty well versed on that.  And certainly I'll become as involved as possible in that.  As much as the power plant wants me to be... that's the thing you always forget.  Sometimes they want your help.  Sometimes not so much.

That's the same thing with the Town.  There are a lot of things at the Town level -- there's a sign ordinance, for example -- it's not really a county issue.  I can weigh in with what I think or what I don't think, but my job is more to give advice.

Another big issue for me is this $6,000 that Pat Prior asked for.  I had a real problem with that.


You're talking about when she asked for Lansing to contribute for broadband in Caroline?


Yeah, I had a big problem with that.  I had a problem with her asking for it.  I had a problem when the Town voted to give it to her.  I didn't even think it was legal, to be honest with you.  The Town Attorney called it a gift.  It's not our job to give out gifts.

I thought it was not legal because I'm sure there is something in the town charter about monies collected, and that the monies collected are to be used for the town.  To me it wasn't being used for the town.  They were giving it to another town.  And we are not the piggy bank for the county.  People think that Lansing has all this money.  You go to other towns and they say , 'Oh yeah Lansing, they've got all the money in the county' -- I don't think the people in Lansing think that.

So that's a big issue for me.  Money spent where it's supposed to be spent.

There are other people who used to think that, too.  People in Lansing were asking, 'why are we paying for youth services at the county.  We have our own youth services.'  And they make a valid point.  But then you have to balance the other towns' needs, too.  So that's a big issue for me, how monies are spent and what they're spent on.  The separation of the county and the town is important.  I think you need a certain level of distance.

Another thing going forward is sewer failed.  The town's still going to grow.  The town's going to grow.  I thought Connie Wilcox made some good arguments.  I thought some other people made some good arguments against the sewer.  My big objection to the sewer to the sewer was the (cost of) the hookup.  But I can understand North Lansing, too, saying, 'we're never going to get this so why are we being charged for it?  And it's only going to go up from here.'  They were all solid arguments.  I knew people who did the actual investigation who were for it, but at the end they said 'alright we can't do this.'

The school is going to need a new septic system or a sewer -- they're going to need something.  There are peopole who are saying, 'aw the school should just pay for it.'   Well, yeah.  let's see if we can get some grant money going for that because it's going to be expensive.


The school is in the process of doing that right now.


So whatever the county can do to support their efforts in doing that would benefit the county and benefit the school.  Maybe there's something to be done there.  Maybe if they do a small package plant... There have been certain communities here that have had to build small treatment plants.  Maybe that's the direction the schools are going in.  If it is, is there any ability for people to tie into that?

Some people are saying, 'why are we pushing the sewer?  I don't even have water yet.'  In this house I'm like that because we have a terrible sulphur water problem. 


OK, last question: anything we missed?  Why should voters vote for you?


I'm going to be here a long time. I love the town.  My daughter and I are going to live here a long time.

People said the first time around maybe I wasn't as involved as I should have been.  I think I have been in this campaign.  I felt like I walked a lot during the last campaign.  This time I'm out walking and I generally go to a lot more outreach events than I do town meetings.  But since people want me to go to the town meetings I go.  When there's a big issue and I knew there were going to be a hundred people at the sewer meeting, I was at the sewer meeting at the Town Board.

The big power plant meeting -- I didn't get to speak because I wasn't an elected official, but certainly I heard everybody's opinions.

That was everybody's big complaint.  I think I wrestled that.  I think I've solved that.

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