Archive: News

The Lansing Town Board Monday struggled to find a way to legally give the town library building to the Lansing Community Library (LCL).  Town attorney Guy Krogh told the board they can not simply give the building away, at least not legally. But he said New York State Comptroller opinions allow a municipality to deed the building to another public agency by passing a local law.

"You can't give away capital assets except in rare circumstances, and this is one of them," Krogh said.  "So Because it is a public agency the Town cannot give the property to the library.  That's prohibited.  But it can by local law it can because it would not be superseding a general law.  There are a lot of comptroller-related opinions on this kind of thing."

The Lansing Community Library building currently leases the building from the Town for one dollar per year.  That lease is a problem for the Library.  It includes a required eviction provision that allows the town to evict the Library within 180 days.  That makes it close to impossible for the Library to obtain state grants for capital projects.  The possibility that the library could lose its building on such short notice means that grantors are not willing to invest in improving the building, even though it is highly unlikely that Lansing would pull the rug out from under LCL.

The Town would lose a dollar in revenue, but would also give over maintenance and repair responsibility to the LCL, for a net savings to the Town.  The Library, for its part, would own the building outright, and could make up the added expenses in successful grant bids.  Both the Town and LCL would have to grant variances in order to accomodate a shared parking lot and the library building's septic system, which is located on what will remain Town-owned land behind the Lansing Community Center.

Councilman Ed laVigne asked Krogh whether the gift would cause any tax impact.  Krogh said the building is not on the tax rolls now because it is owned by the Town, and would not be on the tax rolls after the transfer, because LCL is an independent taxing authority in its own right.

Lansing Supervisor Kathy Miller says she wants to make sure that the building is only used for the purpose of a public library, and if it is not needed for that purpose in the future the Town should regain ownership.

"Here's what we want to do," Miller said.  "We want to give them the library building and write up something that says should they not want the building or they build their own facility, then the building reverts back to us."

Krogh said a provision could be written that would revert the title to the building back to the Town if the Lansing Community Library either did not want to use the building as a public library, or if they decided to close the library for any reason.

Miller asked Krogh to begin work on the language of a local law, and said she hopes to be able to pass a law giving the building to LCL by August.

v8i26