- By Dan Veaner
- News
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First the good news: in November the Tompkins County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) came to an agreement in mid-November with the County's largest taxpayer, AES Cayuga, on a 20 year Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) agreement. The plant's valuation would increase from $130 million to an anticipated $255 million by 2013. In the first year alone the Lansing School District received $300,000 above what it had gotten the year before. Now the bad news: only three months later the IDA renegotiated with the coal-fueled power plant. The new agreement lowers the assessment from $160 million (which includes a $30 million rise this year as per the original agreement) to $100 million in 2013. That contributed significantly to the school district's budget gap that resulted in cuts and layoffs throughout the district."The big question is how do you go from $255 million to $100 million in a couple of months?" says Lansing Superintendent Stephen Grimm. "It just did not seem like that was valid, so we're looking to understand how that was calculated."
'Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postmen from their appointed rounds.' Well, maybe, but the rain certainly didn't deter volunteers from coming to Lansing's Myers Park Wednesday to build a new playground. Fundraising began in February, and Wednesday was the first day of the 'community build' that will result in a big, beautiful, finished new playground this Sunday.
Representatives of Triax Management Group, L.L.C. were at a joint meeting of the Village of Lansing Trustees and Planning Board Monday to talk about their plan to build an 82,000 stand-alone retail store along with 12 senior housing units. This time the focus was on the senior housing part -- a different plan from what they suggested in April. The original plan proposed four triplexes, while the new plan retains one triplex but shows nine stand-alone units.
Members of the Legislature’s Public Safety Committee were told Monday that local natural gas drilling in the Marcellus shale will likely produce more above-ground emergency incidents—many stemming from human error—and social effects arising from an influx of drilling workers.
The Tompkins County Democratic Committee endorsed Congressman Michael Arcuri in his bid for re-election to the House of Representatives for New York’s 24th District during a full committee meeting on Tuesday, June 8th.
Tompkins Community Action celebrated 44 years of partnering with low-income households and individuals as they develop to their full potential Friday, May 28th, 2010. TCAction marked the occasion with its Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony, held at the Women’s Community Building in Ithaca. Over 165 guests filled the auditorium to listen to guest speaker Fannie Glover, and to witness the presentation of the Community Action Award and the Joe Cassaniti Community Service Award.
Legislature Establishes County Clerk, Sheriff Salaries
Now that the Lansing 2010-2011 budget has been passed by the voters, it is up to the district administration to make the adjustments necessary to stay within that budget. Last week Superintendent Stephen Grimm presented the first of two resolutions to the Board Of Education that will cost the district the equivalent of 15 jobs. Grimm explained that the individuals slated for layoffs must be chosen strictly on the basis of seniority, and do not have to do with merit.
The Lansing Fire Department is pro-actively moving toward electronic Emergency Medical Services (EMS) reporting according to Fire Chief Scott Purcell. Purcell told fire commissioners that representatives from emsCharts, a company that provides electronic reporting software, have demonstrated their product to Lansing EMS responders.
With insurmountable opposition in the New York State Legislature to David Patterson's tax on sugared sodas, the Governor has announced a modified version of the tax he hopes will be more palatable to lawmakers. The new version would net $815 million per year for the State, as opposed to $1 billion estimated if the original penny-per-ounce tax had been passed.
The Tompkins County Board of Elections has been honored with a Best Practices Award from the New York State Board of Elections for its presentation on using free project management software to help manage and track election events.
State Senator Mike Nozzolio is calling for the immediate resignation of New York State Office of Children and Family Services Commissioner Gladys Carrion for sanctioning an inappropriate and illegal taxpayer-funded sex party at a juvenile prison in which at least one underage girl and a suspected prostitute were brought in to perform inappropriate sexual acts on inmates.