- By Dan Veaner
- News
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Steve Farkas has been Lansing Town Supervisor for eight years, and is currently running for a fourth term (his first two terms were two-year terms before the position was changed to a four-year term). Born and raised in Lansing, he attended first grade in the brick schoolhouse that he later served in as a town councilman for a year and a half, and then as Supervisor. (The building is now the Lansing Community Library Center.) The Republican incumbent is now running for a fourth term.Farkas lives in Lansing with his wife Alice. The couple has a son and a daughter, both of whom work for the State Child and Family Services office, and three grandchildren. Daughter Kathleen has worked at the Lansing Residential Center for 19 years.
Originally a teacher, the bulk of his career was with the State, working with at-risk children for 33 years. The last administrative position he held before he retired was Director of the Louis Gossett Center in Lansing. Farkas met with the Lansing Star in his office at the Town Hall this week to talk about.
Lansing Star: Why are you the best candidate for supervisor and what unique benefits do you bring to the job?
Steve Farkas: I have a long career in public service and that comes with the ability to deal with the public in ways that the average person may not have the experience in doing. I am a people person, I work with people. I worked with at-risk youth for my career, I taught school. I actually started my career…I taught school for a year and a half down in Walton, New York. I was a physical education teacher.
Then I got into working with at-risk youth starting at the then Austin McCormick Youth Rehabilitation Camp that is called Camp McCormick. It is out in Caroline. And then I worked my way up through the ranks from a Saturday 10 hours assigned Sunday rec specialist to becoming an administrator in my career. In my 33 year career with the state I was at a level of assistant director for about five years and then McCormick, then as director of facilities up in Adirondack for 20 years and then came back to Gossett for two years.
I spent a lot of time working with the public and it’s been very fulfilling for me. I have always enjoyed working with the public. I have not been afraid to go out and meet with the public and talk with the public. Take your lumps, and you had to take them and go forward. And I think there is a similarity of experience in the fact that working in institutions and then becoming a politician because you never know which side you’re going to get hit from. So you just figure I’ve had to learn to do my best, try to give everybody the best I can, and I don’t always give them the answer I want but that’s natural. Everybody wants that particular answer but I’ve learned over the years being honest and being straightforward is the best thing so.
LS: What are the top two or three issues facing the town over the next four years and how will you address that?
SF: Well I would say that probably the major issue that we are going to be faced with is development. Development is coming and we need to continue to develop the town in a logical manner.
My major concern is that we really need to protect our farming community. I kind of backed away from my old statement that the Mason-Dixon line was route 34 running east and west, and I think we’ve moved it now to Buck Road. But north of Buck Road we really need to protect that, and as part of the farming community we have to be very careful.
| "...Residential growth costs you money. Commercial development brings money in. We’re having a lot of residential development and we have to find a way to put together a package for commercial development..." | ||
That’s probably the real major issue we have. Then the rest of the development within the town we do in a logical order that’s…now that we have zoning… keep the teeth in it and add more stringent zoning ordinances, land use ordinances to make sure that we don’t create more problems that we’ve got already.
We know where the soil composition is really not great for having half acres lots or quarter acres lots. Without sewers, make it an acre lot minimum just to even take care of all the big issues that are going to be there especially in the areas of the poor soil composition.
LS: That anticipated my next question so I’m going to use that to ask you to be a little more specific. I will tell you that if I have one beef with the sewer project it is this: I see sewer as a tool for controlling growth. And it seems to me for the year or two I was covering that story, that the project came first and town planning came second. That didn’t make sense to me and it didn’t seem to make sense to a lot of people because the progression seemed backwards.
I know that a lot of that was just the political progression of how things developed with the Group of Six, and in many ways it was an inherited situation for the current Board. But it’s really made me think about what level of town planning there ought to be. It seems to me that the town has been very hands-off in that regard historically. What level of hands-on or hands-off planning do you think is appropriate?
SF: Just to start from ground zero for Steve Farkas, I think that right now the ideal (situation) would be that we would have a sewage treatment plant that we would then develop from there. We would create our own.
What we were being forced to do was to tie to this umbilical cord in areas where people didn’t want development, weren’t ready for development. Or there was development there but they didn’t want the intrusion of more development. A lot of it was personal political issues that stopped a lot of that from happening and you’re very right in the sense it wasn’t driven by people, it was driven by, I don’t know how to put this… it wasn’t logical.
We were adding areas only because of a dollar and cents issue. What was the best way to go? It was mainly to add EDUs by going this way or that way or whatever. There wasn’t a logical order of putting in an infrastructure, and that’s where we have this long pipe that has to go and then it’s going to go through areas that someday may be hooked to the sewer but right now they don’t want to. There were too many issues.
| "..We were pricing people right out of the business and that’s when I made the decision in my heart that this has got to be put on the table, and I take responsibility for this decision..." | ||
Right now I think we really have to look at what is going to be the real logical way to do it. I agree with you it was not logical. The original idea with the stand-alone plant down by Cargill that was logical, but the other way was crazy. We were pricing people right out of the business and that’s when I made the decision in my heart that this has got to be put on the table, and I take responsibility for this decision.
LS: With sewer off the table, though, there are still tools that the town could use to encourage development in certain parts of town and discourage it in other parts of town. The two that immediately come to my mind are zoning and financial incentives.
So what is your ideal of the future of Lansing? I think it’s a given that not everyone accepts, but if you look around it seems to be happening. Development is going to happen one way or another. Growth is happening. Lansing has so much to recommend it and people are attracted here.
SF: I think you’re right. Right now we have gotten to a point where if we look at things like what Ron Seacord wants to do over in the area where he is -- people who can come up with ideas of how do we create affordable housing, clustered type of housing that can be environmentally safe and yet still doesn’t take up a whole lot of land. I think that’s the same type of thing we’re looking with Conifer, and across the road (from the Town Hall) where they have an interest in doing something like the town of Ithaca has done. Conifer has done some mixed housing – affordable. That type of mixed housing that would create something similar to what Ron’s talking about, that can still provide the housing that we need but do it in a logical order.
I think that’s what we really need to do and I know we need to go back and revisit the whole zoning ordinance issue and really come up with how we really want to see the town zoned from this point forward.
LS: So where would you like to see development if it has to be somewhere in town?
SF: There are two areas we need to protect: number one, we need to protect our farming community and, number two, we need to protect the bluffs overlooking the lake so that we not destroy that scenic view that’s there with housing. That would be my nightmare, to see condos going up overlooking the lake and you can’t see the water.
I don’t know if it would ever go to that but I’m just putting that up at the top. I still think those two areas that are natural areas that need to be protected. And they can be protected and we can take them out of the development. And we’re going to have to do it to really to protect some of the integrity of the town as far as scenic vistas that we have that we’re going to destroy if we don’t do something.
LS: You have told me you had some pretty specific ideas about how that can be done.
SF: I think that’s where we develop setbacks that say you can’t go up and build on the very edge of the cliff and look down and tell me you have an effective septic system. I think we need to move that back from that, even if we create some type of a natural area. Something that’s going to allow some type of a buffer between residential development and that scenic vista we want to protect.
LS: So those are two places to protect -- the farmlands in the north and the bluffs. Do you have any preference for where development should be?
SF: Some things that have to run hand in hand. We have to do it where we have the infrastructure to do that. We can’t continue to run these little spurs of water lines and water districts here and there. In the long run, and this isn’t just what Steve Farkas says, but in the long run we need to decide where the best place to put the infrastructure is and direct the development to those areas where that infrastructure is.
Right now it’s too piecemeal and I think that yeah you want to accommodate people, yeah you need water, all those types of things. I just had my septic tank pumped today. We do those things and there are environmental issues around but that’s kind of where…that would allow us to control the development by we deciding where the infrastructure is going to go as a planning unit or planning department that did that whole thing along with the board as to where we want to do the infill not keep going out further and further. We need to come back and look at infill.
LS: I want to nail you down more specifically. I’ve heard this idea of a town center bantered around, I’ve heard the alternate idea of just developing up from the village. I’ve heard some people say that if you have land you should be able to do whatever you want on it. I think most people would agree with what you said about saving the north part for farmland, but would you work as Supervisor for one of those ideas like a town center or a ‘Lansing South’ or whatever?
If you buy into the town center, you’re talking about business development as well as residential growth. If you buy into the Triphammer North scenario what you’re talking about is more or less enhancing the business district that’s already in the Village of Lansing, but not really attracting commercial up here.
Those are two very different things in terms of what the character of this community is and will become.
| "...We know basically the amount of traffic that goes just through the four corners up here at Triphammer and Peruville Road. When we’re talking about 8,000 cars a day. That’s a lot of dollars and cents going up and down the road that we should be getting some benefit out of..." | ||
We’re going to continue with hit or miss residential development if we don’t start to put in some type of commercial development.
We know basically the amount of traffic that goes just through the four corners up here at Triphammer and Peruville Road. When we’re talking about 8,000 cars a day. That’s a lot of dollars and cents going up and down the road that we should be getting some benefit out of.
So I think that’s were we really need to come up with a plan. And again, I think that plan right now has to be how we get enough of the commercial development together to be able to then afford the infrastructure, put the infrastructure in. I’m still not a believer in this umbilical cord that comes all the way from the Cayuga Heights plant into Lansing. I’m not a believer in that.
LS: It’s the chicken and the egg isn’t it? Businesses will attract the residential growth and residential growth will attract business growth.
SF: Residential growth costs you money and that’s my real belief. Commercial development brings money in. We’re having a lot of residential development and we have to find a way to put together a package for commercial development.
I think it’s right in this corridor out here where commercial development should happen.
LS: I want to talk about services that the county provides. The one that is on everyone’s mind is road patrol, something that the county sheriff’s office does but with only three cars on the road at any given time for the whole county.
I know you’re balancing a lot of things here. You’re balancing what people can afford to pay in taxes with services that the community needs. Those needs grow as the community grows.
SF: I agree with what you’re saying about law enforcement. I am a firm believer in the fact that we do not get a very large return on the number of tax dollars invested into the county that comes from Lansing.
I am sure other towns might be able to say the same thing but I think we have a pretty good argument that with the amount of tax dollars that we put in that we could expect more services. Not that I ask anybody to take a patrol vehicle out of Enfield to put it in Lansing. I think the least we should have is a percentage of coverage in this town that is equal to the dollars that we put in. Maybe that’s a pie-in-the-sky type of thing.
I’ve had talks with Sheriff Meskill and Under-sheriff Vitale, and they would love to do it, but they are not given tools that they need to provide the types of patrol that this county needs.
When you’ve got a car in Trumansburg, you have a car in Lansing, and one of them have a problem all kinds of craziness can happen before one car gets to the other side of the lake. We have a crazy situation. We have a county that is split apart by a body of water. So it’s a nightmare for law enforcement, for emergency response, all of those kinds of things, and I think that the time has come when we’re seeing more and more and more criminal behavior outside of the city of Ithaca. Yet it hasn’t changed the level of law enforcement that should be here.
The county legislature controls the budget. That’s just like we control the budget for the departments that are in this town. But if you got nine votes that basically encompass the city of Ithaca you don’t have a lot of power to force a situation of that nature.
LS: Along the lines of what our mothers all told us, that ‘you can’t control what other people do but you can control what you do,’ the next logical thing is that Lansing should have it’s own police force. That’s fine in the theoretical sense, but in the cost sense and the sense of whether the community is even needful or ready for that, I don’t know.
SF: I don’t know either because we’re in a double barrel situation. They’ve cut back road patrols in the sheriff’s department but they’ve also cut back road patrols for state police. They can only give what they’re given. That’s unfortunate because -- I know many of them, I’ve talked to many of them -- it’s a frustrating thing for them because they’re sitting there constantly running themselves ragged.
We see violent crime increasing all the time. I’m don’t know if I would want to be a single officer in the car out in the hills of Caroline someplace or in the hills of Dryden or up Salmon Creek. You’re asking what is logical, we want to have some kind of an assurance that there’s a reasonable response time if you have a problem. And that’s not so because they have three cars on the road and two of them are over in Ulysses and one’s in Dryden and we have a problem up at Milliken, what now Lord?! You better sprout wings.
It is sad and I think it’s really a good point. We’ve had the state police come in, we’ve had the Sheriff’s department come in, we’ve tried to somehow help them to get more help to do the job that they’ve got to do. They have to run a jail, they have to do all this transportation of inmates… thank God the numbers of board-outs are down, because that’s a big dollar item.
| "..I’ve been fortunate to grow up in Lansing, and I’ve seen Lansing go from an ultra rural town to now where we are 2/3 suburbia and 1/3 of a mixed residential situation with farming and all the rest in between. I am proud of the fact that we as a town board have been able to get into the farmland preservation programs..." | ||
So I think there’s going to be a point in time when we may have to look at it again. I don’t know if that will be in my term, but it’s something we’re going to have to take a look at how we can improve the safety and the security of our neighborhoods.
I’m not going to hang the cross on Peter Meskill or our local state troopers because those guys are getting run ragged. I think they do a hell of a job with the tools that they are given. Come down here and our courts are always busy. It’s not like they’re turning their back on things, our courts are always busy so they are out there doing the best they can with what they’ve got and I salute them all the time. The law enforcement folks are out there trying to get the job done with the tools that they got.
LS: Looking in your crystal ball, what changes would you like to see in Lansing in a perfect world in 10 or 20 years?
SF: I’ve been fortunate to grow up in Lansing, and I’ve seen Lansing go from an ultra rural town to now where we are 2/3 suburbia and 1/3 of a mixed residential situation with farming and all the rest in between. I am proud of the fact that we as a town board have been able to get into the farmland preservation programs.
At least we have got some of our farms that are going to be here, and will be in perpetuity because we went out and put forth the effort that has helped us to set aside farm land. We will continue to do that as long as we can possibly do it.
The Benson property in getting that taken care of. There are others out there and I just feel that that’s part of our culture and part of our heritage. My grandparents both on my mothers side and my dad’s side were immigrants that came here and they were dirt farmers.
LS: In Lansing?
SF: In Lansing. So we really need to preserve what we can of the farm land that we do have as best we can and the rest I think is the thing we not mess up things worse than it is as far as residential development. That’s always a battle.
LS: Your opponent as made this a campaign issue: when residents are disgruntled about town employees, either their behavior or the procedures they are using, what is the best way to handle it from A to Z?
SF: Well I think that by following personnel procedures and law. If somebody complains about something a person does we go and deal with that person, but we don’t take them out in front of the Town Hall and flog them at dawn. If we get a complaint we deal with that. The sad part is you only hear one side of the story.
LS: But you as supervisor you hear both sides.
SF: Right, and from that point we’ve had people who’ve been sent down the road, and we’ve had other people that when it came down to the reality, the realities were that a lot of those issues are personal issues that dated a long time before Steve Farkas ever came to the town. Someone went to school with somebody and didn’t like him in school and still didn’t like him 20 years later. I think that’s a problem.
I left Lansing for 20 years and I came back and some people sort of forgot about me. Then you come back and you get back into the community and right away you’re on the list if you’re not on this one’s list then you’re going to be on that one’s list.
I take them all seriously, I deal with them seriously, but -- I am sorry -- I won’t take them out in front of the library and flog them just because of something they did. I think if it takes termination we go through the legal steps to do that and they are terminated but it all has to be done according to the labor laws and everything else. They are given due process, and at the end of the day some people have been told, ‘sorry but have a nice day,’ and they go down the road.
LS: What else would you like voters to know about your candidacy that we haven’t discussed?
SF: Well I take the responsibilities seriously. People call me at home, they see me in the local grocery store or when I go out to dinner with my wife, and I’ve never turned my back on anybody or if they have a question I answer the question. Some people may get annoyed by those things, but if people have a question I’ll answer the question. We can agree to disagree, or we can agree or however they want to do it, but I’ve not hid away.
So my candidacy has always been working in this situation where I am I have always been available. I’ve not ever shirked away from anything and I’ve looked at it straight up and dealt with it straight up.
I guess I would have to say that the bottom line is that for my career I was a civil servant, and I would tell people that I hold certain things dear to my heart. I’m permanent and I’m honest. If that’s what people want they can vote for it. When you walk inside that curtain you vote how you want to vote. I would not dissuade anyone from doing whatever they are going to do. I think that is the wonderful part about this thing and I will always be available.
It’s been a hell of a great eight years and we’ll see what happens with the next one.
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