Archive: News

On 11/03/2010 at about 9:20 PM Tompkins County Sheriff's deputies responded to Homewood Suites Hilton located in Lansing for a reported robbery.   The suspect was described as a white male who had used a piece of cloth in an attempt to cover his face.

The suspect entered the hotel and demanded money from the clerk. The clerk was not threatened with a weapon, and no weapon was displayed. The suspect fled the hotel with an undisclosed amount of US currency.

Village of Lansing Mayor Donald Hartill is making a two pronged attack on Town property taxes.  Hartill says that village taxpayers pay the Town of Lansing $700,000 per year, but only receive $100,000 in services from the Town.  Hartill is both lobbying Town officials to reduce the tax burden on villagers, and lobbying for it at the state level for all villages that are part of towns.  He says he is exploring all options up to and including seceding from the township altogether.

"In effect the villagers are subsidizing the township to the tune of about $600,000," Hartill said at a Village Trustee Meeting Monday.  "If you look at the bottom line more than half of the Town's personnel cost is in the whole town budget.  If you then unfold how much of that cost is snow plowing villagers are paying around $130,000 per year for plowing the roads in the Town outside the Village.  That is one obvious concession we can understand and go forward with."

Town of Lansing is accepting applications for Part-Time Typist at the Highway Department. Individuals with strong communication, record keeping, Math & Technology Skills are encouraged to apply.

Applications available at Town of Lansing, Supervisor's Office, 29 Auburn Road, Lansing or online at www.tompkins-co.org Please return completed applications to Town of Lansing by November 30, 2010.

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The Tompkins County Legislature tonight adopted the County’s 2011 budget and the County’s capital program for the next five years, concluding two-and-a-half months of budget deliberations.  The adopted budget is identical to the amended tentative budget approved by legislators earlier this month.  It increases the County tax levy by 5.98% and the countywide average tax rate by 7.9% to $6.47 per thousand. The budget passed by a vote of 11-4, with Legislators Kathy Luz Herrera, Mike Lane, Pam Mackesey, and Leslyn McBean-Clairborne voting no.

2011 Solid Waste Fee Established

The Legislature, by unanimous vote set the 2011 Solid Waste Annual Fee, which holds the fee at its current rate of $56.00 per billing unit.  As in the past, single-family residences, mobile homes, and churches are charged as one billing unit.  The action also establishes charges for other types of property, such as colleges, recreational, and health care facilities, whose charges are governed by formula.  Legislator Mike Lane proposed an amendment that would have decreased the fee to $55.00 per unit, which failed by a 1-14 vote (only Lane voting in favor).  Lane maintained that in this difficult tax year, the Legislature should limit the fee as much as possible to reduce the fee as much as possible. Solid Waste Manager Barbara Eckstrom told legislators setting the fee at $56.00 represents a prudent long-term approach in maintaining the division’s fund balance.

After the Tompkins County Legislature adopted a $156,755,480 2011 budget Tuesday that will increase the tax levy by 5.98% and the countywide average tax rate by 7.9%, Lansing's Legislator Pat Pryor came to the Lansing Town Board meeting Wednesday to report on what county legislators had done.  Town officials, who recently adopted their own budget that reduces both the levy and tax rate, were not pleased, saying that the rise is not sustainable, and that county legislators had bowed to pressure.

"When the County makes all these cuts, they come back to the towns," said Deputy Supervisor Connie Wilcox.  "Then we get chastised because we don't add any more to program funding.  We cut our tax rate this year, and we cut our tax levy.  We had tough decisions.  We had some pretty heated discussions amongst ourselves."

The Legislature’s Capital Plan Review Committee Wednesday expressed its support of moving toward further analysis to explore the concept of a Center of Government building, exploring the potential costs and benefits involved if the County were to replace several older, inefficient office buildings with a single, efficient structure. 

The committee, without dissent, authorized County Administrator Joe Mareane to prepare needed proposed resolutions to present to the Legislature and to prepare a scope of services. If approved, up to $50,000 in contingency funds would support expert study of the Center of Government concept, examining potential costs and benefits, and other factors.  Once the funding was authorized, the County would solicit qualifications of prospective consultants to conduct the research.

A new supermarket in Lansing passed another major hurdle last Friday when the Tompkins County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) unanimously approved Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) agreements for the two LLCs involved in the project.  The seven year agreement reduces property taxes by 90% in the first year, incrementally decreasing to 13% in the seventh.  With Town approval of the project last month, developer Andy Sciarabba says the store is still on the aggressive schedule he has set.

"We're hoping for a May opening in 2011," he said.  "If all goes well we'll meet that goal."

It may have been the Lansing Schools' dirty little secret that it has had problems fulfilling IEPs (Individualized Educational Programs) that are legally required for students with special needs.  Some parents, at least, have expressed their frustration about getting IEP requirements fulfilled for their children, both in private conversations and negotiations with the school system.  Monday the Board Of Education found itself in a contentious discussion of whether Superintendent Stephen Grimm should be empowered to hire an outside consultant to quantify procedural lapses that may not only have caused unfulfilled IEPs, but may also have cost the district $100,000 or more in legal fees and lost reimbursements over the past three years.

The Legislature’s Facilities and Infrastructure (F&I) Committee took a first look last Friday at a proposed new local law that would regulate heavy commercial use of County highways to protect those public roads from damage.

The purpose of the proposed law would be “to maintain the safety and general welfare of County residents by regulating heavy commercial uses of County roads that have the potential to adversely affect such roads” and would temporarily exclude certain commercial traffic that could cause such damage.

I've been following the County budget debate with some alarm.  The legislature is talking about the levy increase, which at the current rate being considered would be a 6.36% rise.  That would come to an estimated 8.28% tax rate rise.  Wednesday they voted to raise the levy by 5.98%, a tax rate rise of 7.9%, an increase of $75.30 for the average $160,000 home.

I don't really care about the recent history of tax rises or the difficulty of deciding what we can live without -- we elect our legislators to make hard decisions.  Am I the only one who thinks 7.9%, especially in this lousy economy, is obscene?  It's better than 8.28%, sure.  But it's worse than 3%.

Washington, D.C. -- Lansing Town Councilwoman Kathy Miller was among the estimated 215,000 people who crowded onto the Mall for 'The Rally To Restore Sanity' last Saturday.  The rally was Comedy Central's anchorman Jon Stewart's humorous response to Glen Beck's 'Restoring Honor' rally which only attracted 40% of the number of people who attended Stewart's rally.  Miller says that Stewart did restore sanity, at least on the Mall Saturday.

"I think it was very sane there," she says.  "To have that many people and for it to be so low key.  If anything was loud it was laughter.  But nobody was yelling or saying anything nasty -- it was amazing."