Archive: News

The Lansing Town Board passed a law Wednesday that will raise the income caps for senior and disabled property tax exemptions.  This brings the exemptions to the highest income level allowed by New York State law.  With the March 1 deadline looming for eligible seniors and disabled individuals, Tompkins County Director of Assessment Jay Franklin says there is still time for people who will turn 65 in the current calendar year (or older) to get their applications in.

"Call us in February so we can help you," Franklin said.  "We take faxes, emails... we even started taking text messages last year.  Everybody has a phone with a camera that can take a picture of their application and send it out to us."

Tompkins County is studying the housing needs for those who live, work or study in the county in order to identify ways to increase housing opportunities and options. The survey should take about 15 minutes of your time. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and all respondents will have the opportunity to enter a drawing for one of three $50 Downtown Ithaca Alliance gift cards.

The town board encourages people to participate in the County housing survey so that we have accurate information about housing trends and needs in our town. We will be incorporating this information into the updated Comprehensive Plan.  For more questions about subscribing and unsubscribing to this group, contact list manager Karen Edelstein, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  Tompkins County Housing Survey: http://e-input.com/surveys/tompkins.htm

Tom Reed unveiled his support of the bipartisan Make It in America Manufacturing Communities Act, which would allow local manufacturing communities to be designated for federal grant funding to encourage job creation.

"We care about families and bringing the jobs those families need to continue to make New York State their home for generations to come," said Reed. "It's only right that we help create the opportunities for those families to stick together."

New York State Senator Mike Nozzolio recently met with Kevin Hallock, Dean of the Cornell University ILR School, and Richard Hurd, Cornell University ILR School Associate Dean for External Relations. During their visit, they discussed an array of topics of importance to Cornell University.

Senator Michael Nozzolio, Chairman of Public Protection Budget Subcommittee, as well as Chairman of Senate Codes Committee, focused on a joint legislative hearing on Thursday to provide a thorough review of issues that affect the safety of law enforcement, first responders, and the public in New York State. The hearing was convened at the State Capital by the State Senate and Assembly to address and review all aspects of the criminal justice budget as well as budgets for correctional services, military and naval affairs, the state police, the judiciary and homeland security.

"This hearing was an important step toward creating new initiatives and legislation to strengthen our criminal justice laws and establish additional protections to keep our first responders, police, fire and emergency providers, safe from harm," said Nozzolio. "As Chairman of the New York State Public Protection Budget Subcommittee and Senate Codes Committee, I look forward to continuing the effort we have started to develop genuine, lasting solutions to eliminate violent crime in our communities and ensure the safety of our first responders."

The New York State The Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA) was initiated to help address the $10 billion budget deficit in the 2010 fiscal year.  Since that time school officials say $1.1 billion in school aid has been withheld from districts across the state.  Intense lobbying has had little effect, although little by little funding levels have been restored.  This year the State Senate passed a resolution to eliminate the reductions, but the Assembly has not taken action.  While some money has been restored, a full restoration did not make it into the new budget proposal.

"We kept hearing that they would be doing a full restoration this year, School Superintendent Chris Pettograsso said at Monday's Lansing Board Of Education meeting.  "That is not the case.  So we have to continue to advocate hard for the restoration of the GEA."

Economic Development Committee Chairman Chris Williams says Lansing needs to retain, expand and attract.  Retain existing businesses, help facilitate their expansion and attract new business that will increase the tax base while blending into the character of the Town.  And he says the township needs to look at the rapidly changing technology that is just as rapidly changing

"We're looking at the landscape," he says.  "Then we're trying to say, here's the landscape today.  The economy has been basically moving lumpy objects around, by trucks, buy cars, airplanes, whatever.  The economies of the future will take advantage of this (fiber optics) highway.  if your plan is attracting more of these businesses that take advantage of that, maybe that's a contribution to making this (roads) infrastructure last longer."

Lansing Town Supervisor Ed LaVigne and Councilwoman Katrina Binkewicz attended the first Vilage Trustees meeting of 2016 Monday.  LaVigne and Binkewicz, both newly elected, say they want to attend Village meetings regularly to improve the relationship between the municipalities, which have been under some strain in recent years.  The issue is taxes.  Mayor Donald Hartill charges that villagers are over-taxed, and has even threatened to separate the Village from the Town, while town officials have argued that merging the municipalities would save Village taxpayers money.  LaVigne says he hopes to forge stronger ties between the two municipalities.

"I hope this is the start of a much stronger and productive relationship," LaVigne  said.  "Along with my fellow board member Katrina Binkewicz I look forward to developing stronger relaptionships with you.  We represent you also.  I hope that our presence here will continue to strengthen that relationship."

Tompkins County Public Health Director Frank Kruppa addressed the New York State Legislature's Joint Legislative Committees on Health and Finance, and Ways and Means regarding health officials' budget concerns for the upcoming State fiscal year, as part of the committees' review of Governor Cuomo's 2016-17 Executive Budget.

Appearing January 25, Director Kruppa provided verbal and written testimony in his role as vice president of the New York State Association of County Health Officials (NYSACHO).

The Planning, Development, and Environmental Quality Committee of the Tompkins County Legislature today recommended that the Legislature approve a formal resolution of support for the timely development of the Black Oak Wind Farm project in the Town of Enfield.

Following discussion, the measure was recommended without dissent (Legislators Carol Chock and Rich John were excused); with Legislator Dooley Kiefer abstaining due to her status as an investor in the wind farm project

The Village of Lansing Trustees approved a new Commercial Medium Traffic District in its zoning law Monday, in a unanimous vote.  Mayor Donald Hartill says the Village has contemplated the zoning change for over a decade, and Planning Board Chairman Mario Tomei says that it took two years to develop the law in its final form.

"The Village Planning Board and the Board of Trustees had been considering talking about the changes," said Village Attorney David Dubow.  "That was part of the Comprehensive Plan, which forced the boards to look at the Village to see what it used to look like, what it looks like today, and more importantly what you may think the Village should be like in the next 20 or 30 years.  That was the catalyst for doing that."

Lansing firefighters responded to an apartment fire in the The Meadows at Ithaca at 100 Graham Road in the Village of Lansing Saturday, around 1am.  The fire caused significant damage to three of the eight apartments before the fire was substantially put out in 30 minutes after a faulty hydrant delayed responders.  One tenant was treated for smoke inhalation, but there were no other injuries.  Responders from the Lansing, Cayuga Heights and Ithaca Fire Departments continued to extinguish hot spots, remaining on the scene until 5:30am.

"We had a slight delay in fighting the fire when we first started attacking it, the initial attack line was deployed and firefighting operations began, during this same time a large diameter hose was hooked to the hydrant and charged, within seconds of charging the large diameter hose the hydrant broke at its base in the ground," says Lansing Fire Chief Scott Purcell. "We lost water pressure and had to establish another source of water at another hydrant at the complex. During this hydrant relocation all firefighters were pulled from the interior of the building, once the new hydrant was secured and working we went back to aggressively fighting the fire, the changing of the hydrant probably cost us somewhere between 5-7 minutes."