Archive: News

One of the themes I hear frequently is that of doing what is good for the community, even if there is a cost to it.  Lansing people are generous, giving lots of money and 'sweat equity' to everything from local causes like the town playground and local residents in need to global causes like a school in Africa.

This theme has repeatedly come up in sewer committee meetings as well.  Wouldn't most local citizens pay a little to bring benefits to the town overall?  Wouldn't it be worth under $100 per year to have a town center with shops, parks, and walking trails, and to beautify the Auburn Road corridor between Triphammer Road and East Shore Drive?  Even if you would never get sewer on your street?

I know a lot of people who don't give a second thought to giving back to their community.  But I think there are factors that make this way of thinking dangerous for those who think it will trump human nature when a sewer comes up for a vote. 

First of all, people like to choose their charities.  I believe the playground initiative was successful for a number of reasons.  It had an aggressive, invested leader with quite a few highly invested volunteers at every level of the project.  It was a focussed project, with a limited time frame (about six months).  Most of all, it was a playground.  people liked it, so they chose to give to it.

Yeah, playgrounds are a lot more warm and fuzzy than sewers.  They are for children, and Lansing is, if nothing else, a family-oriented community with strong support for its kids.  Also, six months of giving is a very different thing than 30 years of giving.  Another thing: if you don't have children you can go to Myers Park and see the benefit of your labor and donation.  Kids and parents love that playground.

But if you don't have sewer you don't see any smiling faces using it.  Even if you visit a friend who is hooked up you probably don't think, 'oh what a lovely sewer' when you go to the loo.

You may think school taxes are low or you may think they're high.  But you can go down there and see our children getting a high quality education.  You can swim in the pool.  You can attend a play or a football game.  Talk to Lansing children and see what they're made of: something good is happening there.

There is also the notion that charity begins at home.  For some people an additional annual mandatory payment will bring hardship.  For a few it may mean losing their homes.  These may be good people who are invested in the community and who choose to give back in ways they can afford, such as volunteering time.  Not having enough money to just drop a check doesn't make them less invested in the community.  It just makes them less wealthy than some of their neighbors.

This is not an ideal world, and counting on idealistic philanthropy over human nature is not a practical approach, especially when you are talking about something as aesthetically unattractive as an underground pipe full of poop.

I believe in giving back, and I believe that the notion will strike a chord with a lot of Lansing residents, but I think the best way to tell residents about the benefits of a sewer is the Jerry Maguire way: 'Show me the money!'

Looking at the glass half full, how much gas will I save if I do most of my grocery shopping at nearby Lansing Market?  What impact will using a sewer have on the schools, and therefore on my school taxes?  How much additional tax base will be attracted because of sewer, and how much per $100,000 of my property tax rate will be reduced?  How much additional sales tax will be generated by businesses that locate in the town center, and what impact will that have on my taxes?

Looking at the glass half empty, if there is no sewer how much per $100,000 of property value will my tax rate, particularly my school and county tax rate (which I think are too high), go up?  By how much would my property value go up (average over 30 years)?  Of more than 4% rise in last summer's Lansing school tax 3% went to making up the loss of revenue from the power plant that's value is plummeting.  How much more will it cost homeowners to make up the increasing loss?

Will that add up to the amount people in a sewer district who are not in a service area are expected to pay?  If it is a wash and town officials can demonstrate that it will be a wash I think most people outside of the initial service area will vote for sewer.  If you had to pay $50 and the town could demonstrate $30 of tangible benefits would you have a problem voting for it?

After you show me the money, don't forget the intangible things that I care about: sewer may be an ugly, poopy pipe, but it can do beautiful things.  It can help protect Cayuga Lake.  It can prevent that enormous unexpected septic expense that pops up every 20 to 30 years by (pardon the pun) spreading it out until eventually it is a wash.  It can make that beautiful town center feasible.

In an ideal world people will be philanthropic, and where better to start than your own community?  But the real world comes down to dollars and cents, even for people who are able to be extremely generous.  There are just too many other factors that impact our spending decisions, and unfortunately for some of us they sometimes determine those decisions for us.

I used to live in a community that allowed the kind of sprawl that presumably a town center will prevent.  Today what used to be a lovely rural area is one giant ugly strip mall with so many big box and other stores that hoards of shoppers drive 90 miles from Chicago to shop there.  I don't want that for Lansing.

So show me the money.  I believe I live in a part of town that is extremely unlikely to get sewer service in my lifetime, or at least in the lifetime of owning my current home.  I love the idea of a town center and believe sewer and a town center will save the lake and prevent development sprawl that threatens Lansing's farm lands.  If it also ends up costing me little or nothing after the benefits are factored in, voting yes will be a no-brainer.

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