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	Village of Lansing Voters: All four candidates will be participating at a moderated Candidates Forum on April 22, 4:00 - 5:00 at the Ramada Inn, 2310 North Triphammer Road.

Brian Goodell is running for Village of Lansing Trustee.  He has lived in the Village for 14 years with his wife Nancy.  They have five children.  He is a Lead Coordinator for Care of Buildings on the west campus at Cornell University.  He served three years as President of UAW Local 2300, during which time he got the local chapter out of debt.

Goodell is running because he says villagers are not being adequately represented.  He says the 'status-quo' government has not had any opposition and he would like to give villagers a choice in the coming election.  He says he cares about what happens in the Village and at village meetings.  We talked about his candidacy last weekend.

Lansing Star:  Why are you running and what will make you a good Trustee?

Brian Goodell:  I'd be a good trustee because I will listen to the constituents.  I try to get information from the constituents.  For one person to think they know it all is ridiculous.  That's why I would ask the constituents about what they want in the Village.  That is why I'm running.

As for my experience, I've run for office before, and I care.  That's a good reason to run.

LS:  What do you see as the key challenges that you'll face as a Trustee if you are elected for the upcoming two year term?

BG:  First of all, I wouldn't base my actions on what the Village wanted 12 years ago.  I would base it on what's happening now.  I think that it's time that a survey was distributed to villagers, asking what they want, what direction they want the Village to go in.  I am not assuming I know what they want.

I also think as far as green space and environmental issues, and protecting wetlands, those are issues that are coming up in the near future and are things I really want to concentrate on.

LS:  At least one candidate has challenged the transparency of the Village government.  Possibly two, because it sounds like you just did.

BG:  Absolutely.

LS:  What would you do differently to make the government more transparent?

BG:  First I would invite people's opinions.  I wouldn't assume I know what they want.  That's the first thing you do. You go to your constituents and ask them what they want, and vote for what they want.  You're there to be their representative.  You're not there to represent you.  You're going to them for help and that's what you should do.  they're electing you based on that trust.

The second thing is there is a lot of history in the Village and the Community Party that is pretty much in charge of the Village now.  There is a lot of history there. I think the villagers never had a choice, and now they will.  By giving them that it's going to open up transparency on the other side as well.  So by running it helps our government be more transparent.

LS:  Development in the northeast/Dart area of the Village has been very controversial this year.  How do you see the issues that have been raise being legally and fairly resolved?

BG:  FIrst of all we've got to know what the issues are.  There are a lot of excuses out there about why they do what we do, but we haven't seen any evidence that they're supposed to do what they do.

The second thing is they're not tapping into all the resources available.  We have a lot of residents in the area that probably could help a lot more with what they need done.  I don't buy into the idea that it's a legal issue as much as others, because we all know if there's a fire in the woods it doesn't matter whose land the fire department has to cross to respond.  That's a good samaritan law, and it's legal for them to do so.

So I don't buy in to all this 'panic' thing.  If it were a panic thing they would have done it years ago.  I think it's more (a matter of) what somebody else wants us to do.  It's not what the Village wants to do, it's just what somebody else wants to do and I'm worried about that.

We don't need a decision right away.  If we did it would have been made ten years ago. They're trying to push a cart that doesn't need to be pushed right away.  We need to take time and find out what alternatives are out there, not just assume that's the only way.

There are few things out there I think they should have gone to the villagers to approve.  They're getting ready to build a million dollar house for themselves.  With that price and our taxes and where the economy is, shouldn't they have had a referendum or something to send it back to the voters to find out what the voters want?

LS:  I think it's about $700,000.

BG:  Well, I never heard anything about it until I started attending the meetings.  I thought, 'Wow, that's a lot of money in these times.  Taxes are going up.  They're not decreasing.  It's a lot of money to spend when we have a perfect (building) right now to conduct business in.'  So that worries me.

Things like that should be brought back to the villagers so they can have a say in them.


LS:  What would you be interested in working on as a trustee?  The development issue was the spark for you running.  Would that be the only interest you would have?

BG:  Actually it wasn't the development issue that caused that spark.  It was more the issue of not being heard by the current elected officials.  When I was going to those meetings I was bringing back some of those concerns to Dart Drive where I live.  They wanted to know how it came to be, and I said, 'They're not listening'.

Some of my neighbors and my friends prompted me to run, not the development per se.  It's one reason, but it's not the whole reason.

I think we need to have more involvement, and I think we need to involve our constituents more.  That's what prompted me to run.

LS:  Are there any other specific issues you have an interest in working on, or do you want to see what's there and then respond to it?

BG:  When I was on the UAW board I was also on the UAW State Educational Program.  Working at Cornell I have a lot of familiarity with education.  I would like to put more initiative on educating all the people here in the Village, and also education as a whole, how our children are being educated.

I am very strong on environmental issues.  I don't want to see our wetlands hurt, or the animals that are living in those wetlands hurt.

One of the things I found most interesting when I went door to door getting signatures (to run) was when I talked to residents about what they wanted to see.  We always hear about the deer problem, but one of the things we don't hear about... there was a lady on Dart Drive that was really worried about development behind her property because a wild turkey flock comes there every day.  It's a beautiful thing, and she loves watching them.  She thinks it's the greatest thing.

I can understand, because they're a very wholesome bird.  They talked about making it our national bird, so it's very interesting that people care about things that are happening in their wilderness.  I said, 'Yes, but they plan a barrier.'  She said, 'You can put a hundred foot barrier anywhere you want, it doesn't stop kids from crossing it.'  She is worried that water and other things would deteriorate if we don't do something to protect it.

That's another reason why I would like to run.  I like listening and trying to come up with solutions.

LS:  The Village has a reputation of being tough on zoning issues, especially on requirements for businesses such as signage, lighting, and how many parking spaces you can have...  As a Village Trustee, what kind of growth would you advocate?

BG:  First of all, if you talk about the residential growth they're talking about, if it's going to cost taxpayers any amount of money...  We're hiring consultants to look at this (northeast village access) issue.  My thought is, wait a minute.  Why are the taxpayers hiring consultants? Are we going to hire consultants every time a taxpayer wants to build a house?  No.  We should be doing the same thing with this.  We're paying money to have consultants come down.. I'm not sure of the price now because they raised it again at the last meeting.

LS:  To be fair, they raised it so that a committee of all stakeholders in the area could meet and be involved in the process of solving the access issues there.

BG:  Yes.  So that cost was raised.  Interesting enough there were only three votes in the room.  I wonder if that was a quorum.

LS:  It was.

BG:  When they raised it I thought, 'Wow, are we going to do that every time new construction comes to our village?'  To me whoever the developer is should be the one that should be footing the bill if they want to think about developing the land, not the taxpayers.

I'm not here to step in the way of anybody developing their land.  It's their land.  I'm adamantly opposed to taxpayers footing the bill for that.

LS:  The Mayor has pursued lowering town taxes for villagers.  Where do you stand on this issue?  Should the Village avail itself more of town services which villagers are entitled to and are offered by the Town?  Should it secede or merge with the town to reduce duplication of governments, or work with the Town as-is?

BG:  I don't know enough about it and I don't know what transpired before that.  I would have to do a lot of reading and studying to find out exactly what's going on.  I think that anybody entering office who hasn't been there is going to be a breath of fresh air -- that's our campaign slogan -- because why would you have a problem with them? They didn't do anything yet.  I think that will make communication better between the Town and the Village.

But I would have to know more of the details, and learn more about why the Mayor said what he did or did what he did.  I'm not for losing any services that are available for the villagers now. I think they are part of the Town of Lansing.  I would hate to see a division there.

I think everyone achieves more together.  So I don't know enough about the issue, but, as I said, I would like to serve the villagers and find out what they want.

LS: What would you like people to know about your candidacy that we haven't already talked about?

BG: The biggest thing is I am an advocate for my constituents.  Whatever they want us to do, that's the direction I'm going to go in.  That's what I did when I was an advocate for the UAW membership at Cornell, and that's what I paln on doing here.

I will also make a lot of house calls.  If I don't understand something I will get more information before I make my decisions. I don't think you can run a government without that information.  I think you need to know what the constituents want.  I think you need to know what the voters want.  And that's how it should be done.

I also believe in a two party system.  With two parties you can have better government because of the checks and balances.  it's as simple as that.  We're gong to look at what's being done and what needs to be done.  Checks and balances means that one party can't go gung-ho unless they have permission from the other party as well, so we have more of a democratic process. 


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