Archive: News

James Mason is a structural and geotechnical engineer who works on historic structures.  He and his wife Stephanie Levy also own and operate a historic structure, the Federal House B&B in Ludlowville.  They have lived in Lansing since 1997, and have one son, 20.  Mason holds a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from Cornell, and has worked on structures including the Bay Bridge in the San Francisco area.  He is originally from Livermore, California.

Mason is campaigning on a platform of protecting Lansing's history and natural resources, applying a holistic engineering approach to solving problems, and experience working on local issues.  Among others he has been active in a group of Ludlowville neighbors who have been working with Tompkins County on a project to mitigate flooding in Ludlowville.  He invited the Lansing Star to his home to talk about his campaign.

Lansing Star: Why are you running for Town Board, and what makes you the best choice?

James Mason: I see very clearly that there are going to be many changes coming to us in the near future, both in terms of industry and in terms of land development.  Those issues are huge for what's going to be happening for the people of Lansing and the surrounding communities.

In terms of approaching those problems, and being able to assist with probing questions and technical detail, I bring this technical education.  And I've worked on infrastructure, which is one of the key things that we're going to be seeing.  I bring that knowledge-base to this discussion.  Being able to ask the appropriate questions is as important as being able to vote yes or no on a subject.  I'm ready to do that.

LS: Do you think town taxes are too high or too low, or just right?  Do you think the department cuts in the current budget process are appropriate?  Too much, or too little?

JM: We as citizens have services that we need to pay for.  Because all of us are going through this extremely unique point of time in history with the economy diving like this, we all have to take our fair share of responsibility.  That comes in terms of taking services away from people by proportion, however that occurs.  That's talking about what happens after, but in terms of the tax issue I'm OK about paying my taxes for fair services. 

I don't want to see my taxes go up, because, really we pay a lot of taxes.  The tax burden now is shifting from what used to be Federal to the community level.  So we have to be really smart about this.  I certainly don't want to see taxes go up.  At all.

LS: Do you think they're at a good level now?  I'm strictly talking about town taxes.

JM: I don't know all the detail of the item by item tax.  Those are things that I'm going to have to learn about and gain experience of, in terms of the finances of the town.  I am very confident about being able to handle the economics.  I do it in engineering -- I do engineering projections all the time.  So in terms of being able to talk about those specifics, we really need to, I think, just hold it where it is right now.

LS: Are you pleased with the service for tax that you're paying?

JM: Absolutely.  I am happy with the service.  For example, we've been flooded here in this house several times now.  The Lansing Fire Department has truly come to our rescue.  God bless them, I am so thankful for those guys.  They work hard to take care of things.  We could have had fires in this house because of the floods.

Then you talk about the road crews and the highway department here... Jack French is great.  Those guys are great.  I appreciate all their work and seeing how thorough and professional they are.  I am glad to pay money for those people.

LS: Let's talk about development and the town's role in shaping it.  You can't really talk about development in Lansing any more without talking about a town center.  How do you view development, and what would your vision for a town center be?  And do you see it coming soon or in the far future?

JM: First of all, I am really big on planning.  We have to plan our future, and that means planning where development goes, planning sewer systems, planning and understanding septic systems and the limitations of those.  In this whole process comes the town center.

I am very much for the town center because it gives the community a consciousness.  It gives a collective focus so that the people of the community can come together and realize their community.  That's where the socialization happens, in the town center.

I think it's great.  I'm all for it to start moving sooner than later.  And I do mean with years, a year or two.  I'd be very happy to be involved with making a project like that happen.  We need to talk with appropriate people for setting it up.  We need to give it the appropriate architectural character, set that theme so we all can in consensus say, 'I want my town center to look like this.'  And make that happen.

Once you have that plan in place the particulars come in and fill in the spots.  I'm all for that.

LS: Are you talking about rewriting some of the zoning to make that happen or do it in some other way?

JM: There's already the area that's designated for the town center.

LS: Not officially -- I've heard four or five different ideas for where it should be.

JM: The town center area that I see would be across from the soccer fields.  That is a perfect spot for it.  It has good access to all the main arteries coming in and out of town.  People could move back and forth between the soccer fields and the town center.  Parking could be taking care of, and all those things.  I think it's a great spot.

LS: Should the town try sewer again?

JM: Here's what I want to see with sewer.  The first thing is that I really want to work at putting together a viable relationship with the Village of Lansing and in consortium understand the system, the users, and appropriate user fees.

The thing I don't want to see with any sewer system is to have people that won't be users be paying fees for non-service.  It's a user fee system.  So we have to be exremely careful in terms of making that happen.

LS: That's hard because when you have a sewer district everyone is part of it.

JM: But you don't have to levy a tax to the total population of Lansing if somebody out on Buck Road is going to stay on septic.  There are technologies that can be used in place for treating septic.  Instead of going through and turning up miles of road there are systems that can be put in place.

LS: Are you talking about package plants like they are talking about for Lansing Commons?

JM: There are package plants.  There are composting systems that have been used for large schools.  That could easily be used at the Lansing schools.  instead of trying to refurbish those septic fields that would be a good investment of money and time.

It's about smart development.  I underline 'smart,' because there are so many intelligent people within this area that can bring to the conversation experience that makes things work here.  We can really maintain our rural character, which I really want to see.  That is a big thing for me.  Then we can bring in these technologies that allow us to have a town center that doesn't have to have a pipeline all the way down to the Village treatment plant.

LS: It sounds like you are saying two things, the first being some kind of cooperative partnership with the Village which already has sewer in place.  The second -- it sounds like you don't think that a 'sewer solution' is actually needed, but smaller pieces that fit together in different ways?

JM: Right, because of the technologies.  We are a rural community.  That's the interesting thing about Lansing.  When you get down by the mall you have high density, and that's where a sewer system can move things away.  As you move further out you have isolated development and you need to take care of it there.

The problem is that geology here limits septic fields, because the effluent can only go down so far out of a septic leach field, and then it has to travel horizontally to someplace.  To maintain our natural resources it only makes sense to me that we bring in these point-source treatment plants and take care of our own garbage there.  Then move things out later on.  These systems have 90% less effluent than a regular leach field.

LS: Do you think having a number of these package plants would be more or less expensive than a stand-alone treatment plant somewhere along the lake?

JM: That's a big cost analysis problem, and that's a loaded question for this reason: the problem is to put in these new system necessarily means that to put in a new treatment plant you have to put in all the new infrastructure for that. 

To go in and put in pipe lines is a huge job.  It has a huge impact on transportation.  We really don't have that many major arteries coming in here.  If you take Triphammer out or Warren out of service, it's going to have a huge impact on everyone.  So if you go in and put in a facility on a corner within the boundary of a certain development, that's great.

LS: What can or should the Town do to control oil and natural gas drilling and to contain its consequences?  Should the Town renew its lease with the drilling companies?

JM: The movement of this technology into upstate New York is going to change the character of upstate New York.  It is an industry which would move in here and put itself within our neighborhood and become dominant, for visual, for sound, for light, traffic... all these things.  This is a huge thing.

I am very concerned that a lot of people who have signed with natural gas drilling (companies) were not given complete information about the effect of the implementation of drilling.  The implication to them -- originally they thought they were a private citizen being there, and all of a sudden they have signed on with a huge company and all of a sudden that person becomes liable with that company.  They hold part of the risk.

LS: Do you mean the landowner would be liable to other landowners if something happened?  Or do you mean that something bad could happen to their own property?

JM: I stopped and thought through -- here's a landowner that's signed a contract with a company.  If that company happens to cause some sort of damage, a spill, whatever... who is liable for that?  If it happens on your property?  Lets say you have a toxic holding pond on your site and it just happens to break and it gets out into the creek?  Who is liable for that? 

That whole process happened on your property.  Had you not signed that contract that would have never been built there.  I see the landowner being liable.  And I am starting to understand that is what is starting to happen down in Pennsylvania and other areas.  People just didn't think it though.  They thought they were getting thew golden egg from natural gas drilling and they just saw dollar signs.

As a community you and I should not have to burden the fees of maintaining infrastructure for this huge industry.  They are coming here to make money from our resources.  There are already signed contracts, so I look at this from a perspective of a landowner.  We're all in the same boat being tight for money.  I understand they're paying for needing money.  But, sadly, I think a lot of people were, bluntly, taken advantage of by not being told the complete picture, and being told that they would have this liability problem.

The other part of this goes to the fact that natural resources here are being looked at as being consumed by large multi-national corporations at our expense.  I am really concerned, being a small business owner who works in the tourist industry, that a lot of people come here for the quiet, they come here for the beauty, for the wine, and for the lack of traffic.  All of those would be decimated by these large companies.

This is a big problem.  I really want to understand in terms of the legality of process, if these large companies have presented the problem without appropriate information.

LS: Not to belabor this, but part of the question was 'what can the Town do?'  As I understand it towns have very limited authority.

JM: This is a very interesting thing.  We were talking about this at the table this morning.  The current Town of Lansing Board, as far as I understand, has not applied for appropriate jurisdiction to be an agency that can interject itself into this interaction.

But the deal is there are very specific things that can be done.

LS: How important is rural broadband right now for Lansing, and how should the Town be involved in procuring it?

JM: Broadband is huge.  The modern and future infrastructure is the Internet.  We will exchange information, labor, all these things are going to come through the Internet.  Shopping, information, intelligence -- all the things.  The rural people deserve broadband, and if the line can't be laid I would hope that the companies that provide those services would put up local antenna so that people can tie in and get their service from them.

LS: If the cable doesn't come to where you are the company is very happy to charge you thousands of dollars to bring it to your home and then take your monthly fees as well.  As a TOwn Board Member how involved can you be and what sorts of things can the Town do to bring it here?

JM: I use the analogy of cell phone service.  Ludlowville is the perfect example of that.  It wasn't a year ago when we didn't have cell phone service down here.  But there was finally enough of a demand that AT&T brought the antennas close enough where I can just flip open my phone and get three or for bar reception.

The same thing should be happening in terms of wifi connections for broadband service for computers.  We need to work with these companies and make it very clear that we expect those services.  In terms of trying to force companies -- those are details I would have to look at and understand.

LS: That's the thing -- do you think the Town Board needs to be more proactive in working with these companies?

JM: Yes.  Absolutely.

LS: The companies go where they think the money is.  Every place else is where they didn't think it was, so now how do you get those other people access?  Has broadband become important enough in peoples' lives that government should be involved in making sure they have it?

JM: Yes.  Absolutely.  It's infrastructure.  If you look at it just as you would a road or a water line, it's a form of infrastructure, and it needs to be serviced.  We need to make that happen.

LS: What unique benefits will you bring to the Town Board?

JM: I came to this area with a background in land development.  It just so happens that my father's engineering firm helped develop large portions of the San Francisco East Bay area.  I worked in his company since I was knee high, so I've watched this for a long time and I've experienced hearing that conversation.  So I've seen this process and I feel very comfortable with the conversation.

Lansing is at a similar point in its growth and the chronology of having more people come to the community.  It's just growing and that's what is happening.

I am able to bring this experience with the technical side to the conversation, and pose questions to people wanting to come and help them and our community resolve issues right up front and make it fair.

The whole idea is to have a community where people share the resources and share the burden of growth for the area.  I bring those things to the problem and I am excited to be part of this conversation.  I'm excited to work with other communities for the coordination of this growth and development, as well as with County and State officials.

----
v5i42