Archive: News

Supervisor Candidates Tackle the Issues
Election Extra!

Lansing Town Supervisor candidates Steve Farkas and Scott Pinney laid out their positions on the top issues at a Candidate's Forum on WHCH this morning.  With Greg Fry filling in for Dave Vieser, the two talked about sewer, development, and what it takes to run a town.  Pinney challenged the current government on sewer, a vision for a future town center, and the handling of issues regarding some town employees.  "I am pro the town center," he said.  "I'm against the sewer system that they proposed.  I'm for an open government.  The zoning office definitely needs some correction.  I've talked to residents and they are unhappy with the way they've been treated.  The town constable: I know the Town doesn't think it's an issue, but there are a lot of residents that think it's a serious issue, and I would look at that in depth and try to straighten the issues out."

Both said they favor a town center that could be located on a parcel of land already owned by the Town across 34B from the Town Hall.  While Farkas favors a mixed use center with housing and business, Pinney said he prefers a business-only center there with residential growth in the South part of town.

On sewer, Pinney said he would poll town opinion before spending money on a project, but Farkas noted that the project had been in the works for a long time, and that the only official action taken by the board was to kill it for lack of funding.  "To set the record straight, this was a feasibility study that was done," Farkas said.  "The initial sewer program that was for a standalone plant down by Cargill.  The Department of Environmental Conservation got involved and said they would not allow us to build a standalone plant, but we had to go into a joint venture  into the Ithaca area plant.  Therefore, we had to completely turn things around, and from that point on it was a matter of how we could do that.  A $5 million outlay just to run a trunk sewer line into the Cayuga Heights plant, it got to the point that the Board decided that it was far too expensive to go forward at this point."

Farkas said that there are a number of issues the Town faces now, and while the sewer is the one that grabbed the headlines, he said there are a lot of good things happening in Lansing that may have been overshadowed by the sewer debate.  Both favor protecting farm land in the North of the town, but offered different approaches to fixing it.  Farkas noted that the Town has been working to protect Lansing farms with the State Farm Protection Act, which buys development rights from farmers in exchange for the owners running their business as a family farm in perpetuity.  He said that one farm has already been successful in this program, and a second one has recently been accepted.  "There is a lot more in the north end of the town that really should be preserved," he said.  "It's quality farming land, and the farmers are dedicated.  It will go from generation to generation and I think we need to allow them to continue what they're doing."


Pinney said he didn't want to keep farmers from selling land to developers if they want to, but that he would encourage growth in the Southern part of Lansing to try to keep it happening in the north.  "One of the ways we could try to help them is to get some condensed housing on the south end," he said.

Farkas said that the current sitting board works well because they are willing to come to a consensus even when they disagree.  He said the Town has had many successes.  "The key to the success of what we've been doing is that there is a good cross-section of people," he said.  "People with experience, people from different walks of life that come in there and put a tremendous amount of time into doing what they're doing.  You have to understand that a supervisor is but one vote.  A supervisor's job is to create a consensus of five people to make a decision."

After the broadcast both candidates agreed that a contested race is good for the town.  They noted that some candidates make it personal, but agreed that this time around the race is about the issues.  They will get another chance to debate Sunday at a 'Meet the Candidates' night at 5pm in the Lansing Community Center.  That event is being hosted by Lansing's Republican and Democratic committees.

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