Archive: News

Although Scott Pinney has been Lansing Town Supervisor for only one month, he has already shaken up things in the Town Hall.  On his second day in office he brought an agenda of five items that would change some of the town personnel, procedures, and begin to pave the way for a future town center.  He has been in the Town Hall full time as he gets up to speed on the job and the town workplace, as well as following up on his agenda and learning the ropes.

Pinney agreed to an interview to talk about how things are going and how he envisions the town going forward.  We met in his office last Wednesday, where he had just received the new drawing depicting a possible plan for relocating the town ballfields across the street from their current location as a first step in creating a commercial town center.  He seemed relaxed and comfortable as he discussed his vision for Lansing.

Lansing Star: What has been your strategy for coming into the Supervisor position?

Scott Pinney: I started out talking with everybody that works here at the Town to get a general idea of what their concerns were, what the strengths and weaknesses are here.  From what I learned I've put in different plans and directions to go forward with.

LS: Did any of that surprise you?

SP: Some things did, yes.  One of the things I talked to the Town Board about doing is implementing an in-out board that shows when people are leaving, where they're going and what time they're going to be back.  Comments from different people here suggested there was a need for that.  Obviously some things weren't being done correctly.  Without getting into it in depth, I think this will solve the problems that were going on.

LS:  When you brought your five agenda items to the organizational meeting on January 2nd I think a lot of people were surprised.  It stuck me that those items appeared to be ways to solve the issues you identified in the campaign.  Is that how you saw it?

SP: Yes.  I was more of an outsider when I was running my campaign.  During the campaign I learned some of the things that were happening in the town.  But once I was Supervisor Elect I was able to come into the Town and start talking to people in the months of November and December.  I was able to talk to people and find out what was really going on with the Town.  By the time January came along I was able to present these agenda items and have confidence in the direction we were going.

LS: A lot of them had to do with personnel.  The first one was to restructure the way the town constable is employed.  The second one was to talk about instituting time clocks and the in/out board you just mentioned.  Third was to create a personnel committee.  The fourth one was to swap the ballfields across the street so a town center could go where the current fields are.  And the fifth one was restructuring the Planning Department.  That's a lot.

SP: That is a lot.  But personnel is really one of the biggest costs for the town, the payroll.  So we have got to make sure we have the right people in place.  You know, in a private industry that can make or break the business, having the right people at the right pay.

LS: Was this a way of solving problems?  Identifying the problems and solving them with these personnel adjustments?

SP: That was obviously one of my top priorities.  One of the best ways to deal with a lot of those issues is to form the personnel committee so that it's not just me alone.  So we have a group of people looking at it and making the best decisions and going in the right direction for the town.

LS: I have to ask one hard question.  As a businessman in Lansing you had some run-ins with the Planning Department over the past how many years?

SP: Probably two or three years.

LS: And you took them to court, right?

SP: No, I have never taken them to court. They took me to court twice.

LS: For noncompliance things?

SP: Yes, I guess you'd call it noncompliance.  I think the point you're trying to make is, do I have anything personal against the town because of those issues?

LS: Partly.  There are two ways that can go -- it can certainly be personal, but it can also be a way to identify issues.

SP: Obviously one of the main reasons I campaigned, and why I'm in it, was because of the personal issues I had with the town.  Fortunately I had the money to fight the town on things that I thought were right.  But what I saw was that they were doing the same thing to a lot of other people that didn't have the finances to fight them.  They were forced to give in and take whatever consequences there were.  I tried to change all that, and was unable to change it from the position I was in no matter how much money I seemed to spend.

So I felt that if I ran for this position and got it I would be in a position to protect everybody in the town from actually facing lawsuits or courts.  One of the things I've done since I've been in office is to ask the Zoning and Planning Office, when they have a problem with somebody, no matter what it is, to send out a minimum of two letters, and make a minimum of two phone calls.  After that if we can't get the reaction that we need (I told them to ) come to me and I will personally call the person as a last resort.

We've already had one instance where that's happened.  I made a phone call and the person came in the very next day, paid the money we felt was owed, and the problem was solved.  The town avoided court.  He avoided court.  So all the way around it saved everybody money.

LS: I guess in some ways it's got to be both, but it depends on which one is driving the other.

SP: Right.  I started the whole campaign because of personal issues, but it was really an effect that it had on the entire town.  It wasn't just me.  I was actually meeting with the town board privately a year ago to try to change the way we were doing things, to no avail.

LS: In restructuring the Zoning and Planning department part of it has to do with there being no structure written into job descriptions for management, part of it has to do with how it functions with the public.  But part of it has to do with your plans for the future of the town, right?  You've talked about bringing in an engineer, you've talked about a town center.

SP: I'm not looking to restructure that engineer position for future projects that I think should be done.  It's more of a position in that office -- the main thing is to straighten out the zoning ordinances, the communication lines between that office and the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals, and a person that is really in charge of that whole department.  Where an engineer comes into play is when people come in with subdivisions that this planner/engineer is a person who can do the whole thing and actually take a look at the drawings and understand those. 

We can still get input from our Town Engineer.  But this person would be trained in all these fields so that the conduit between that office and the Planning Board is a lot more efficient than it is right now.

LS: In the flow chart the Town Board developed a year or so ago there was an engineer at the top of the department, then three assistants including an environmental planner, and the zoning office below that.  One of the assistants was an environmental planner, and that's the position they hired.  Was the need for environmental planning more than the need for town developmental planning?  And what is it now?

SP: Obviously you need environmental planning.  I think you can accomplish the amount of work our town has with a civil engineer who is also trained in environmental planning, storm water and all that.  One person with that kind of knowledge should be able to handle all those things the town needs to do at this point. 

So to me it doesn't make sense to just add an engineer at that top level.  We need to look at how many tax dollars we're willing to pay for how many positions that we really need.  In my opinion we can do this job with fewer people.  We may pay this person a little bit more, but in the end we're saving money because we're eliminating two positions to create one with a person that would be much more experienced.

At the same time a lot of the storm water projects and the ponds that the town is taking over now -- the Town Engineer at T.G. Miller looks at the majority of those right now.  Eventually our engineer could look at some of those along with our Highway Department.

I've talked to the Highway Department and they're willing to do a lot of the inspections on these ponds, because they're the ones that are going to be actually cleaning these ponds out in the future.

LS: You're talking about the illicit discharge law?

SP: No, not the illicit discharge law.  We have these storm water districts where we've created ponds.  The ponds have to be dredged out every so often.  So I've talked to Jack (Highway Superintendent Jack French) and Cricket (Deputy Highway Superintendent Charlie Purcell) about the Highway Department doing these inspections.  So that will save us more time at the town level with something the environmental planner wouldn't have to do and the engineer wouldn't have to do.

LS: Which of these five agenda items do you see as the key, if any?

SP: I certainly see the personnel committee to be key, because that really deals with all of the personnel issues in the entire town.

LS: Saving money is a part of the constable and Planning Department items?

SP: Oh, absolutely.

LS: Let's talk about the ballfields and the town center.  When you say town center it means something different to everyone you talk to.  I think people like the idea of having one.  And a lot of people don't like the idea of paying for it.

SP: Let me go into depth about this issue, because this is a major issue.  A lot of people don't understand what we're trying to do here.  We've already got a drawing that shows the ballfields across the road.  It is actually a drawing that shows ballfields that we anticipate for the next 20 years with additional space to expand that in the future.

What we're looking to do is not do this huge project where we're spending a half million dollars to place these ballfields over there.  I've already talked to football people and soccer people.  They're working on getting donations.  It looks like the football people already have almost enough money to go ahead and build the first football field this spring.

These are really preliminary things.  These drawings just got done.  We're going to pass this out next week and get a lot of input from everybody.  Just to start we're really looking to do this with donations from people that are really interested in going forward with this project.  Right now we don't have a football field, and youth football is only able to play two home games every year because the fields are in such demand at the schools.

Now, as far as actually moving the ballfields from here over to the other side (to build a town center where the present fields are) -- it's kind of a misconception.  Those fields on the other side of the road would have to be completely done before anything could be done on this side.  We need to have space over there before we have anything here.  We're not going to eliminate something and not have something to play on.

I know these fields are a very sensitive issue, but I feel that in the future, long term, by opening up the road frontage space it creates a possibility for commercial development on both sides of the road.  On the opposite side of the road where the new fields will be going, all the road frontage will be left open for commercial development.  We're currently working with the State, because that land is designated for recreational use only.  We feel pretty positive that we'll be able to have commercial development on the road frontage there in the future.

LS: They'd agree especially because it is so far from the Gosset Center...

SP: Yes.  So it's more for the long term.  Right now if we get the football field started this year, maybe we'll have some soccer fields next year.  Maybe after I'm long gone somebody will sell a piece of commercial property, maybe build some more fields.  It's more of a direction for the town to go in by getting things set up.

Don't misunderstand me -- there will be some tax dollars spent on this.  We've already allocated $1,000 to spend on these drawings right now.  there's a possibility that we'll need to spend another five or ten thousand on a topographical map or layout or something like that.  I don't feel that fundraisers should have to pay for the main road.

But it would be very minimal cost to taxpayers.  The main fields would all be done by fundraisers.  We'd probably use some town equipment, and the highway guys would work on it when they weren't busy.  It certainly wouldn't be on an overtime basis.  So there is some cost to taxpayers, but at least it's using in-house equipment and personnel.

LS: I dream about a town center.  I've told you before that I miss the Sure Fine.  If you're planning a town center how much do you do?  Do you draw your fantasy town center and show that to developers and say, 'Here's Main Street,' which lot do you want?  Or do you say this will just come out as it will come out?  Or something in between?

SP: I think probably something in between.  Say a bank wanted to come in here.  I think people would love to see a local bank out here in Lansing.  The Planning Board would sit down and pick out a nice spot that would fit in without having a full blown plan of a town center at this point.

It's so early on.  I think there are a couple of businesses, maybe a bank and a grocery store, that we'd all love to see here.  We'd put it in the right spot so we could keep adding onto that in the future.

LS: Let me tell you where I'm coming from... I'm from Boston, and for a while lived near Chicago.  Originally the streets in Boston were cow paths.  That's how downtown is -- wherever they wanted to bring the cows, that's where the streets are.  As a Bostonian I was shocked to find how easy it was to find my way in Chicago, because that city was planned on a grid.  In some ways it was a joy, and in some ways it didn't have the kind of charm that Boston has. 

I always think about that when I come to a new place.  How much charm factor is there, how much planning factor.  The best ones are when they have both really well integrated.

SP: I think in this one you kind of have both with just a small amount of planning.  You're almost on a grid because it's coming off the main road.  You'd have commercial development on each side of the road.

LS: You'd also put roads where you have ballfields now, no?

SP: Right.  I think you're looking so far into the future... I'm not really looking that far into the future.  I'm just looking at the next ten years, if we had two or three businesses that's probably all we could get.  I wouldn't really want a whole bunch of businesses come in all at once.  I'd actually prefer to see one come in, then another year or two down the road maybe another one on a small scale over a long period of time to develop a town center.

LS: On the fringes of this area there has been some development, not entirely successful.  You look at the Bentowski properties -- they did a nice job of developing those buildings, but they haven't been successful in getting businesses into them.  The Lansing Plaza, where the Post Office is -- I don't know whether it's ever been full.  It certainly hasn't in the 20 years I've lived here.

SP: I don't remember when it's been completely filled either.  That's why we can't look at a town center that's going to fill right up over the next two or three years.  I think we'll get one business at a time.  This section of road between the Rogue's Harbor and the Day and Night is a real prime area where we get the majority of the traffic through the town.  I think businesses would do better in this location.  Once you go off -- on East Shore Drive you only get a percentage of the traffic.  A lot of the traffic goes off on Triphammer Road.  But if you center that so people know where those businesses are, if you put businesses all together more people will come to those businesses art the same time.

So I think businesses will do well in Lansing.  It's just going to take time.

LS: Do you think that the town should do more to attract business here?  If so, what more can the town offer?

SP: I think we need to make it more friendly for businesses.  As a business owner myself -- I've been here my entire life, but I felt that the town didn't really care if my business was in this town or not.  And at some points it obviously preferred that it wasn't in this town.

I know a lot of people that have started businesses here and it cost them thousands of dollars to get certain -paperwork done.  The town needs to be very business friendly and teach businesses and help businesses through the process.  Where we seem to be pushing business away.

So I don't think we need to offer tax incentives or things along those lines, but just have a more friendly outlook toward businesses to bring them into this town.

The Planning Board has just completed looking at the zoning ordinance, and the Town Board is going to start the process of looking at it.  We're going to redo the entire zoning ordinance.  I think that's going to make a huge difference for the new businesses coming in along with the restructuring of the Zoning and Planning Office.

We've got a three-phased thing.  We're looking at the zoning ordinance, we're looking at the zoning and planning office, and then we're looking at the Planning Board.  I think that's probably the most time-consuming thing I have on my plate right now, to revamp those things to where I feel that the friendliness to businesses, and actually to the businesses that we have right now to make sure that they stay in this town...  It's going to be a lot of hard work on the Town Board's part for the next two or three months, but I'm hoping to have plenty of time to look at this and restructure this entire process.

LS: What kinds of things are costing thousands of dollars?

SP: I'll give you an example.  We have an Empire Zone in the town now.  We just had a computer software company that wanted to come into the town.  For some reason they were told that the town thought there were wetlands on the property. 

Well it's already been researched for the Empire Zone.  There aren't any wetlands.  We thought that maybe in the future there would be, so we pushed this business out of the town.  It would have created, I think it was 150 jobs.  It was a multi-million dollar project.  It is this kind of business that we want that would actually lower our personal property taxes, but we pushed the person out of the town.

So those are the things I think we really need to make sure just don't happen in this town any more.


LS: Dan Pace came to the last Town Board meeting to basically ask the town to pull the rug out from under the library.  I also know that since then you have been in contact with library officials and following up with both sides of the controversy.

SP: Yes.

LS: Just as a kind of snapshot, where are you on it now?

SP: I'm having a meeting with the library personnel this Friday to get an idea of what their needs are with the town.  I want to get more information so I can answer Dan Pace's questions.  I know there is a lot of controversy on both sides, and I want to try to get as much knowledge as possible to everybody so everyone understands where the whole town is at on this situation.

LS: Are you willing to declare whether you are pro or con?

SP: I made my stance very well known during the campaign.  I felt that the vote for the library in December was very unfair to the taxpayers in the town.  I feel that when we vote on something and it is turned down it should wait at least one year before it is voted on again.

I do understand the library's position that their hands were tied and they needed to get something done before a year.  but I feel that whether it's the library, the Town, the Highway Department, a fire house, whatever it is -- that we should wait that year to revote the things that are turned down like that.

LS: Now that it's been passed library officials say they never had any intention to ask for more money from the town.  And that they have a ten year lease to rent the building for a dollar a year.  Those were the issues that Dan Pace brought up.  Are you satisfied with that?

SP: I haven't actually looked at the lease -- I heard it was a three year lease.

LS: I could be wrong...

SP: If they have a ten year lease I have to stand behind that, because that's what the Town Board did before I was here.  It would certainly be unfair for me to change that at this point.

I was told by one of the library people that they are not going to ask for money from the town beyond this year.  And this year's money was put in the budget.  It was voted on by the Town Board to be given to them some time in January.  It would be very inappropriate for the town to try to hold that back.  We made a commitment that should be honored.

LS: They have a gap.  They were voted on in December and they don't get tax money until next October.

SP: Right, so they were depending on this money to keep going through that period of time.

LS: What adjustments have you personally had to make to work in this office?

SP: The biggest difference for me, being the owner of my own business, is that you make decisions on your own.  You can make them in a short period of time and go ahead and do something.  In this position you're dealing with groups of people who make decisions all the time.  With the decisions I make in my own business it would normally take me a half an hour to get something done, where here it might take me all month to go through the same process.

It's a lot more time consuming to get things done.  It has to be because you're dealing with the taxpayers' money.  That's really the biggest difference I've run across here.

LS: Were there any surprises, things that were completely different from what you expected?

SP: Not really.  I guess I was really surprised that I actually won.  (both laugh)  It took almost until now to really sink in, the responsibilities and the job that I am doing.  I'm here pretty much full time right now.  It consumes all my time.

LS: And this is the slow season in your business, so it works out?

SP: Right.And I have some really good help that has taken over.  Nate Snyder, my nephew, has taken over my  business.  He's running the whole show so I don't really have to worry about anything right now, so I can devote all of my time here.  It;s very nice to be able to do that, to go from one thing to another in a short period of time.

LS: What about the people here?  There is a group of people that has been working together, in a lot of cases, for a long time.  Sharon Bowman's been here through the past three supervisors.  They are people that you knew, but not in this way.

SP: Right.  Sharon is really a key player here.

LS: She really runs the place, right?  (both laugh)

SP: She certainly knows what's going on, and it's made my transition much easier.  Thanks God for her, because I give her a lot of things and ask her a lot of questions.  I know I consume a lot of her time and she's never complained.  She's right there with whatever I need.  it's been a huge help having someone like that ob board, with all the knowledge that she has.

LS: You have a very different personal style than (past supervisors) Steve Farkas, or Jeninne Kirby for that matter.  I know there is a period of adjustment going on.  Is it going well?  Do you have a strategy for that or are you taking it as it comes?

SP: I think people wondered what I was going to do when I got here, and they knew things would probably change some.  I bring the perspective of the private sector where things are done a little bit differently.  People realize that and I think they are taking that very well.  Things are moving in the right direction.  I feel I have a lot of support here now, and the more time I'm here I think the more comfortable it will be for everybody.

Right now we're on the right track and moving in the right direction.

LS: Did the Association of Towns training you took this month give you some good tools?

SP: It certainly helped.  I was there for three days.  Before I went I read most of the books and manuals, and it covered a lot of what I had read.  This whole month has been a lot of training for me, and we're (Pinney along with Town Board members) going to New York City for more training.  I feel a lot more comfortable now than I did in the beginning of December.  I've learned a tremendous amount.

There is a lot of help.  If I have questions I can call the Association of Towns, and there are different places you can call for extra help.  In the private sector I'm not used to having extra help.

LS: It seems like the Town Board has realigned, at least visually at meetings.  Before you came in it was Republican, Republican, Democrat, Republican, Republican and they all seemed unified as a board.  Now it's Democrat, Democrat, Republican, Republican, Republican.  Is decision making still going across party lines?

SP: Obviously I'm a Democrat, but I have a lot of Republican views, as you know from previous interviews.  I don't vote on things based on party lines by any means.  And I don't believe the Town Board looks at issues along party lines.  I don't look at them as Republican or Democrat -- I just look at them as town board members.  I thnk that's the feeling of the entire board.  Politics really don't play any part in our decision making.

LS: What about 'Old Lansing, 'New Lansing,' the old Lansing being more from rural roots, a conservative outlook.  New Lansing being transplants, generally higher income, closer to an Ithaca outlook.

SP: Do you consider me more of an Old Lansing person or New Lansing?

LS: I'm not sure.

SP: I consider myself more Old Lansing.  I grew up more in the country and have been here for so long, so I go along those lines.  I think I would consider most people on the board Old Lansing than New Lansing.

LS: One of the things I have heard (Deputy Supervisor and Councilwoman Connie Wilcox) say a lot over the past few years is how well the board was able to work together in terms of being able to disagree, but also come to a consensus that they could all stand behind.  Are you experiencing that now?

SP: It's pretty early to see which direction we're going to go in right now.  We probably won't come to as much consensus as they did before, because I think I have some different views than other people on the board do.  We'll just have to see how it all turns out.

LS: But you are also the leader of the board, which is a different kind of position.  I couldn't help but notice that the board got behind you on the Planning Department reconfiguration.

SP: And I was very happy they got behind me.  As a supervisor I spend probably more time here than anybody else, especially at this point.  I've spent a lot of time researching, and even with that personal opinions are going to be different.  But it was nice to have the support of the Town Board on that issue.

LS: What are you looking at for the near future?

SP: Right now I'm really working hard on the issues that I started at the beginning of this month.  We're coming to a close on some of them.  We're getting close now.  There's a lot of work on all the issues.

The Town Constable, which is actually the Town Police Officer now because we're a first class town, that's being advertised and we're accepting applications on that.

LS: What does that mean, a 'first class town?'

SP: Once you reach a population of 10,000 or more you become a first class town.  A first class town has a police officer, where a second class town of less than 10,000 has a town constable.

LS: So we're moving up in the world...

SP: We're moving up!  (laughs)

It's a lot of work.  On the ballfields project I've got to get input from the Planning Board.  I'm going to show the ZBA. I want to show a lot of people in the public what we have here and get a lot of input on that.  We're working on the employee handbook and the in and out board.  We want to get that done in February and March and then have a Town Hall-wide meeting to explain the rules and how this is going to work.

We're in the middle of restructuring the Zoning and Planning Office.  We're going to be right in the middle of the zoning ordinance, which is going to consume a tremendous amount of time.  It's over a hundred items.  It's not just those items, but getting the entire Town Board to understand what we're trying to do here and maybe discussing other items that aren't even on that list.

So we have a lot to do.  We can't worry about new things at this point.  I'm trying to get through some of these issues, and we're right in the middle of it.  Hopefully in another month we'll have solved some of these things and move forward.

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