Archive: Around Town

28 people showed up to vote in December's Fire District election, and two of those didn't vote seriously: one wrote himself in as a joke, and the other had shown up at the wrong place, but voted anyway, writing in 'someone else'.  District Secretary Alvin Parker, running uncontested, got the other 26 votes, and he began his fourth term as fire commissioner this month.  "I like doing what I'm doing," Parker says.  "I've been doing it since I was 18 years old."

Parker served his first term as a fire commissioner in the late 1970s, then served two more terms 1997 and 2007.  He says that he would like to help maintain the steady course the district has been on for the past several years.  "I'd like to keep the tax rate where it is," Parker says.  "That's one of the things that is important  in this day and age.  You can see that in the votes that have been taken in the Town.  I'm involved with (new construction on Central Station and a new fire station proposed for the Village of Lansing).   I've been working closely on the addition.  I want to see that happen."

Such a small fraction of eligible voters is not unusual for Lansing, or for districts across the state.  "It trends the same throughout the State of New york," says Commissioner Jeff Walters.  "If you ask other fire districts, their turnout is very low also.  We were asked how many districts had more than 5 people at budget hearings when we were at a conference, I think only two people in the whole room raised their hand.  That's the trend.  New York State people don't seem to come out for fire district elections unless somebody is really up in arms about the budget."

Parker says he would like to see more people voting, but when people are happy they tend not to get involved.  "I think it's a little of everything," he says.  "A lot of people may not know about the election.  We have a lot of transient people in the town that may not know or even care about it.  Apartment dwellers may not be interested.  The older townspeople are the ones that are interested, but they know that things are going pretty well.  The fire department is top notch, so they're pretty satisfied with what's going on."

"And I think the board is doing a better job with the budget and planning," Parker adds.  "The budget plan goes out 20 years, and the capital plan really works well.  You can hand it out and show people what's going on in the district, and that helps a lot.  Since we started doing that and really paying attention to it, it has cut down on a lot of public referendum votes for big apparatus and buildings."

"The bottom line is that people see their taxes aren't going to go up," Parker says.  "It's staying fairly low.  And it hasn't for the last year.  As long as people hear that they don't come out and vote."


The department received 1053 calls this year, up over 100 calls from last year.  42.9% of the calls were for fires and 54.4% for EMS.  Chief Scott Purcell says that is about the same ratio as last year.  "Our call volume just keeps going up and up every year," he says. 

"It probably has a relationship to the population and growth in the community," District Treasurer George Gesslein says.  ""Many years ago when I first got involved with the department I can remember when the fire fighters went door to door to get people to vote for something that they wanted.  Nobody ever showed up."

Deputy Town Supervisor Connie Wilcox says that increasing numbers of activities in the town have also meant more emergency calls.  "This year alone I've noticed a lot more calls at the RINK," she says.  "Activities are going on in the town, and once you bring people into the town it creates situations where they're going to need to call 911, and I think that's part of it too."

Evidently those people are happy with the fire department, happy enough to to stay home on election day.  "We put out notice where it needs to be," says Commissioner Bob Wagner.  "I'm not sure what else we can do to tell people there is an election every year."

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