Archive: News

Proposed State Health Regulation Could Disrupt Home Health Agency Sale
Legislature Chair Martha Robertson and County Administrator Joe Mareane told legislators they are deeply concerned about a proposed “emergency” State Department of Health regulation intended to fast-track the entry of new Certified Home Health Agencies (CHHAs) in counties with fewer than two private such agencies.  The regulation, to be voted on by the DOH Public Health and Health Planning Council on Thursday, December 8, would eliminate the Certificate of Need process and would enable private agencies to apply for a license to establish an agency in a county by paying a $2,000 fee to New York State.

Tuesday's Lansing Fire Commissioners meeting was quiet in stark contrast to the contentious November 15th meeting at which nearly 30 volunteer emergency responders protested an apparent decision to hire a paid fire chief.  That meeting persuaded commissioners to take a different approach. 

"At this time we are not going forward any farther with a paid chief," said Fire Commissioner Chairman Robert Wagner Tuesday.  "We're working with the Office of the Chiefs to try to resolve some of the problems."

The Tompkins County Planning Department submitted a document the Village of Lansing will use to hire a consultant to study and recommend future development around Dart Road.  The study was prompted after fierce neighborhood resistance to a proposed project that would bring 65 townhouses to the neighborhood.  The Lansing Reserve project is proposed for a 23 acre lot north of Dart Road, but it is only one of three large parcels that could be developed there in the future.

"This (will study) the whole area," said Deputy Mayor Lynn Leopold Monday.  "We're looking at it on a more holistic level to see what our options are for transportation and density and access and safety, and all those issues that keep coming up as we continue in our discussion of it."

More than 56 percent of New York’s 882 fire districts recently passed budgets without filing the required tax cap data with the Office of the State Comptroller, according to State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. The electronic filings were due by November 4.  State law requires fire districts to file their proposed budget data for review by OSC prior to adoption of their annual budgets to ensure that the districts’ tax cap calculations are accurate.

Last week, the Comptroller’s office mailed warning letters to 613 tardy districts, following up with telephone outreach to dozens of districts. By Monday, 497 districts remained delinquent.  Only two districts in Tompkins County -- Brooktondale and Slaterville Springs -- were listed as delinquent.

Nearly five months after it began its work, the County’s Independent Redistricting Commission has filed an interim report with the County Legislature, summarizing its activities to date.  The Commission is charged with presenting the County Legislature a recommended plan for reapportioning County legislative districts based on the 2010 Census.

Considering an array of alternative maps prepared by staff based on membership of the County Legislature ranging from 13 to 17 members, the Commission as of November 1 narrowed its favored active options to four:  one scenario that would maintain a 15-member legislature, one option for a 14-member legislature, and two for a 13-member legislature.  At its most recent meeting November 16, members, however, decided to drop the 15-district option from its preferred alternatives at this time, since it, in part, would require a number of sliver districts into the Town of Ithaca and would not keep the Village of Cayuga Heights intact.  That option, however, could be restored later.

After a special meeting last week to allow the public to express concerns about the installation of security cameras in the Lansing schools, Superintendent Stephen Grimm presented a compilation Monday of 23 questions asked along with the district's answers.  In stark contrast to the last two Board Of Education meetings that saw many people questioning the decision to use cameras or expressing concerns about the policy governing the use of the cameras and recordings, the only community input on the topic came from school board member Christine Iacobucci.

Iacobucci read a statement in which she said that security cameras are the most controversial method of providing school security.  She said the district should have solicited feedback from site-based teams, the PTSO, teachers, staff, and students in 2009 when the project was being formulated.  She said that schools need to be more closely monitored and supervised by caring adults to make them safe places.

After two-and-a-half months of budget deliberations, the final action took less than ten minutes, as the Tompkins County Legislature tonight adopted the County’s 2012 budget and its capital program for the next five years.

The adopted budget is identical to the amended tentative budget approved by legislators earlier this month.  It increases the County tax levy by 3.99% and the countywide average tax rate by 3.1% to $6.67 per thousand.  The budget passed by a vote of 11-2, with Legislators Dooley Kiefer and Leslyn McBean-Clairborne voting no.  The levy increase is just over 1% above the 2.92% level that would be required to fall within the state property tax cap.

Legislature Urges Involvement, Support for County Health Departments Related to Gas Drilling
Maintaining that county health departments are responsible for ensuring the safety of local drinking water supplies and protecting public health, including the responsibility under pending regulations for water supply testing and investigating complaints related to potential contamination related to gas drilling, the Legislature is calling for local health department to be involved in determining procedures, processes, and funding requirements for aspects of drilling oversight that affect county health departments.

Lansing Fire Department members felt they were blindsided at their monthly meeting a couple of weeks ago when a short statement from the district commissioners was read, informing them that the volunteer Fire Chief position would be replaced by a paid position by next June.  This week department members came to the Commissioner's meeting loaded for bear.  The meeting was confrontational to the point where at one point Fire Commissioner Chairman Robert Wagner threatened to clear the room.  Chief Scott Purcell is opposed to the move, and was supported Tuesday by nearly 30 of his fellow volunteers.

"As far as I am concerned spending the taxpayers' dollars for a full time fire chief is not warranted," he says.  "They don't need a paid chief.  It shouldn't even be an issue and it should have been discussed in open meetings before this."

On election day voters were met by volunteers taking a survey to determine how Lansing residents feel about gas drilling in the town.  916 residents completed the survey, enough to insure a two or three point confidence interval, plus or minus. Lansing Town Drilling Committee member Tom Butler presented the results Tuesday at the November Town Board meeting.  The survey showed that 64% favor a ban on drilling in the town.

"It was important that the survey was as unbiased as possible," Butler told the board.  "All the survey administrators were told many, many times that they should not discus their own feelings with people taking the survey.  We didn't want their opinions.  We wanted the people filling out the survey's opinions."

The first hour of Monday's Lansing Board Of Education was a heated discussion of whether surveillance cameras should be used on the Lansing school campus.  Board member Christine Iacobucci and a cadre of speakers spoke against using cameras, asked for data supporting their need, and the need for a policy to govern their use.  Superintendent Stephen Grimm and other board members noted that the cameras are part of the Learning, Health & Safety capital project that was well publicized two years ago when the public voted to fund it.

"My intent as a policy board member and community member is not to push this through, and it is not to suggest that we adopt this particular policy, but to officially read it and get input from the community after it's read," said board member Aziza Benson, who is a member of the policy committee.  "It certainly was not to sweep it under the carpet.  I felt since the cameras are in place or will be online soon it was important that we get the policy that represents what we want to do as a board and a community going."

Over the past three years layoffs in the Lansing schools have been a reality.  While school officials have been able to minimize the impact of alarmingly reduced revenues by using reserve funds and losing positions by attrition, the gap between expenses and revenues in these years was counted in millions.  Monday School Business Administrator gave one of a series of presentations to the Board Of Education that outlined the current state of the district's fund balance and how some of that money might be used to plug a $3.7 million gap in projected revenue for the 2012-2013 school budget.

"All we do is keep laying off staff and we have this tremendous increase with the staff that's left... we lay off more staff, and we have this tremendous increase with the staff that's left again," said school board member David Dittman.  "Pretty soon we're not going to have anybody left unless we look at the problem."