Archive: News

Snow plowing and road paving are the kinds of things you expect of a Highway Department.  The Lansing Highway Department excels in those.  But a positive attitude, pride in their work, and a willingness to try a variety of things has involved the Highway Department in a number of projects that aren't exactly connected to Lansing's more than 93 miles of road.  And that work saves hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars that otherwise would have been outsourced to contractors.

"We've had may highway superintendents ask us how we get our guys to do all that kind of stuff," says Highway Superintendent Jack French.  "They say, 'There's no way my guys would do that.'  We just ask them.  They enjoy doing different things, and we're lucky.  We've got the guys that are knowledgable.   We've got plumbers and maintenance people who have done it in the past and they enjoy doing it."

Lansing's Highway Department is the largest department the Township has.  French takes pride in the scope and quality of work his crews perform.  Many of the special projects his crew takes on are visible such as the Myers Park Marina, the parking lot for the Lansing Town Trail.  But few people realize that the department paves for the Lansing School Fire Districts just for the cost of materials, helps maintain school ballfields, provides a gas pump for fire and emergency vehicles, or had a major role in a variety of projects.


The North Log Cabin, which was built near the intersection of Conlon and Searles Roads in Lansing soon after the Revolutionary war is a prime example.  In the summer of 1990 the DeWitt Historical Society of Tompkins County learned that the Cayuga Museum was interested in returning the cabin to Lansing as they were no longer using it as a memorial to Millard Fillmore.  The Lansing Historical Association was unable to raise funds and manpower to take on the cabin, but when the museum told town officials that they either had to fetch the cabin or it would be trashed, then Councilman Bud Shattuck began researching what it would take to bring the cabin home.  

Shattuck wanted to lift the cabin onto a flat bed truck and transport it in one piece, minus the roof, which was damaged and not original to the structure.  But the cost was prohibitive.  He and French talked about the problem, and it was the Highway Department that ultimately saved the oldest known log cabin in Tompkins and Cayuga Counties (they were once joined in a much larger Milton County).

Highway Department employees came up with a system of safely disassembling the cabin log by log, marking them with special tags.  It took a few trips, but they managed to transport the logs back to Lansing.  A couple of years later Ed LaVigne volunteered to raise money to erect the cabin in a new location.  It became the first major fundraising project of the then newly formed Lansing Community Council.  Again the highway department stepped in, preparing a mound near the entrance to Myers Park that would raise the cabin above the flood line, and digging the post holes for the informational kiosk in front of the cabin.


The Town Marina is a major project that Highway Department employees completed over three winters.  By the time they had finished the Town had what was virtually a brand new marina.  French says his crew not only doesn't mind doing these projects, but really enjoys doing them.

"They take pride in these projects," he says.  "They all pay taxes in the Town and most of them live in the Town of Lansing.  So they take a lot of pride in the projects.  We do a lot that a lot of highway departments don't do.  The marina is probably one of their favorite projects.  Some of them actually own boats that are docked down there.  It's also something that can bee seen by thousands of people every year.  They put in brand new walls and brand new docks throughout that marina.  They increased the number of docks plus increased the number of docks that have electric service and water."

He notes that even includes big things paving the Town roads, noting that a lot of highway departments hire contractors to do their paving.  Lansing has its own equipment and a long range plan to insure that all Town roads are maintained.  You have only to drive on a state road, then turn onto a town road to see that Lansing's roads are above average.

The extra projects aren't all big.  The department's fabricator built the dog waste baskets used in the town parks.  Sign posts and small structures for town trails and similar areas are fabricated at the Highway Department.

While Town Boards have discussed creating a Department of Public Works in Lansing for many years, even going so far as to create flow charts for its organization, no board has ever taken that leap.  French says that a typical Department of Public Works would have the responsibility of maintaining all town buildings, and notes that in most cases the Parks Department, a Maintenance Department, a Water and Sewer Department and the Highway Department are folded within a Public Works Department.


In the absence of that Lansing's highway Department has taken on many of those responsibilities, including the installation this year of an enormous culvert where Gulf Creek streams under Triphammer Terrace and construction of a pump station on Village Circle.

"It will enhance the water system as a whole," says French.  "It will bring more water pressure for the people in the Hillcrest and Tiger Lily areas.  This will be the third pump station we've built in the last few years."

Highway Department personnel also put in water lines in places that need long lengths of water line repaired, as well as performing all repairs on the water lines and the sewer.

"The water line is getting older now," says French.  "A lot of it has been in the ground for 30-plus years.  Depending on the type of soil it could rust them out quicker.  There have been quite a few water repairs."

French's department saved the Town plenty of cash by doing most of the work to erect its own salt storage building, which French says was a huge project.  The Highway Department built the walls and supports, and the company that provided the building stretched the tarp over the roof struts with help from town employees.


"We did all that work ourselves," he says.  "It took a lot of doing and it's something we had never done before, but yeah - we'll tackle it and see what comes of it.  Putting the solar panels on our roof was a pretty good job, too.  Again we didn't know anything about them, but we gave it a try.  We had somebody there telling us where everything goes and how to do it, but we did 99% of the work ourselves.  That was another nice project."

French says the Town Board has been receptive to maintaining his department's equipment or purchasing new equipment when it is needed.

"They realize how much money we save the Town," he says.  "Not only do we save money by doing it, but we also have pride in doing it.  If some company comes up to pave our roads they don't care what kind of mess they leave in somebody's yard.  They just go ahead and pave.  But our guys do care because they work for the taxpayers in the Town.  They take pride not only in doing the paving, but in making everything look nice when we're done.  We've got a good crew that does all that."

In addition to helping other Lansing departments, the Town's Highway Department regularly helps neighboring municipalities, and receives help from them in turn.  Lansing helps many towns with their paving, including the Town of Ithaca and Caroline and Ulysses.  In return those Highway Departments help Lansing by hauling some of the blacktop when Lansing does its own paving.

"We keep hearing about 'inter-municipal cooperation.'  Well, the highway departments been doing that for years and years and years," French notes.  "We don't need Albany to tell us we need more inter-municipal cooperation when we've been doing it for years."

So when a Town Bord Member mentions that the Highway Department is fitting in extra jobs for the Town during the times when their regular schedule is not busy, it is a misnomer.  The department is always busy.

French says that he and Deputy Highway Superintendent Charlie 'Cricket' Purcell are constantly applying triage to official projects like road paving and extra ones to get as many as possible.  He says that Councilman Ed LaVigne often brings projects to his department, and they are taken care of as time allows.

"There's always something for us to do," French says.  "We can be cutting down trees, painting guide rails, or anything.  We try to prioritize it and if we can save the Town more money we can paint the guide rail or cut that tree down next year.  That's the hardest part and that's what I've got to tell them.  We will help you out when we can, but our first priority is the highways."

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