Archive: News

I'm rooting for the sewer project.  Even though my own home isn't near the proposed sewer district I am rooting for it to succeed, and here's why -- if the project is built it will help everyone in Lansing, and even in Tompkins County.

Sewer will help people who are in the district because it will provide an ongoing, eventually cost-effective way to get rid of waste.  It will raise their property values.  It will give them back the use of large portions of their land that must be used for septic systems.  And for those whose septic systems are failing or inadequate, it will give them a way to spread out the cost of replacing it over several years instead of having to pay all at once.

It will be good for the Lansing schools because two out of three of the district's large septic systems are at the end of their life spans.  It will be good for the environment because smaller sewage plants such as those operated by the juvenile detention facilities and Cargill will be taken off line.  Also good for the environment will be elimination poorly functioning septic systems.  It will benefit residents of Ladoga Park, where flooding threatens to pollute Cayuga Lake when septic fields are covered with water.

For the rest of the Town the benefits will be far reaching.  First and foremost, it will make the creation of a town center possible.  This is important because it will focus higher density development in a place where townspeople want it, protecting farmlands where townspeople don't want it.

It will create an attractive central gathering place that will help define the community.  Lansing is a close-knit community, but right now it doesn't have a 'Main Street'.  A town center will provide one.  The way things are working out the community has a chance to design its town center, rather than suffer haphazard development that has been typical in the town.

Back to sewer district residents: as the town center is built up, the cost to each resident will go down.  The more people in the district, the more there are to share the costs.  So existing residents will benefit from new, controlled growth.

Back to the town center: an ambitious plan that was presented to town officials last month included housing for seniors, affordable housing for younger families, parks, a retail and professional office area, and a business and technology park.  Sewer attracts developers because they can build things closer together, making their developments more cost effective.  The retail and professional offices will save gas for Lansing residents at a time when gas prices are skyrocketing.  County officials desperately want affordable housing.  This is a way it can happen.

New development, particularly business development is needed in Lansing to make up for the horrendous drop in the value of the Town's largest taxpayer, AES Cayuga.  That value is dropping from $160 million in 2009 to $60 million in 2014.  For Lansing schools that will result in an estimated $2,281,305 drop in revenue.  It will also impact revenue to the Town, the library, Tompkins County, and the fire district.  We need new business to make up for that lost tax revenue.  Sewer will attract it here.  Further, it will mean that revenue can be replaced more quickly than without sewer.  Considering that 3% of the proposed 4.5% school tax rate rise goes toward making up that AES Cayuga revenue loss, the quicker the better.

Right now the sewer project is at a crossroads.  If town officials can figure out how to make it affordable it is likely to happen.  If not, costs are only going to go up in the future, so who knows when or if Lansing will ever have sewer?  It's almost certainly now or never.

That's why I am hoping the sewer will happen this time around.  It is not going to be easy to make this sewer project successful, but I am rooting for the people who are trying.  Roto-rooting.

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