Archive: News

Albany - Calling the New York State Tax Department derelict in their duties to implement State tax law by failing to collect sales taxes on retail goods sold by Native Americans to non-Native Americans, State Senator Michael F. Nozzolio today called for Acting State Tax Commissioner Robert Megna to begin immediate collection of the tax.

"New York State government is the #1 tax scofflaw in the entire state," said Senator Nozzolio. "The overburdened property taxpayers of New York State are owed approximately $250 million from the collection of taxes on tobacco and motor fuel sold by Native Americans to American citizens. It's time for the NYS Department of Taxation to follow the law and collect the tax."

WASHINGTON, D.C. - During heightened economic insecurity and rising health care costs, U.S. Representative Michael A. Arcuri (D-Utica) voted today for legislation to provide health care to over 10 million children nationwide, including 396,042 children currently enrolled in New York's SCHIP program (CHPlus), and extend coverage to an additional 268,000 eligible New York children who are not enrolled. Arcuri voted to override the President's veto of the revised bipartisan SCHIP bill (H.R. 3963).

"When unemployment increases, so do the number of Americans without health insurance and during these times of economic uncertainty families deserve to know their children won't go without critical care," Arcuri said. "Today, I proudly voted once again to give thousands of local children access to the health care they so desperately need."

Last December Interim School District Business Administrator David Klemm warned the Board Of Education (BOE) that the district could expect to overspend the 2007-2008 budget by as much as $300,000.  At Tuesday's BOE meeting Klemm was back with slightly better news.  With new information he has revised his estimate to a $262,000 shortfall.  With contractual obligations that automatically increase the budget every year, Klemm said he would have to add to this year's budget when building the budget for next year.

"I've got to build next year's budget starting at that number right there," Klemm said.  "I've got to!  I have no choice, because if those are my expenditures this year -- they're not going to go down.  That means I've got to make up $262,000 before I begin."

When you buy a house near the airport and later complain about the noise of jetliners overhead it is hard to find a sympathetic ear, because you surely knew that planes would be flying overhead when you bought the place.  But when it is a matter of bullets flying onto your property it becomes more complicated.  That is the situation residents of Muirfield Drive in the Town of Lansing now face as they attempt to deal with an incident in October when a bullet rammed into Dr. Amit Shrivastava's window, shattering the glass. 

"I told my family to duck as I was running out," Shrivastava told the Town Board in their December 19 meeting.  "There is an extensive corn field in the back and I thought maybe it was a hunter shooting.  So I ran out yelling, 'Please stop!' -- but nobody was there.  I searched the area behind my property, the corn field.  And the shooting continued for a few more minutes from the gun club."

Lansing Community LibraryLansing resident Dan Pace was at Wednesday's Town Board meeting to pursue his crusade against the Lansing Community Library and the tax implications of the library being funded in a controversial December 11th vote.  The vote authorized a new library board of directors to collect 15 cents on the thousand dollars of assessed property value to raise $105,000 per year to fund the library.

Pace has been a vocal opponent of the library, sending a challenge to the vote to the State Commissioner of Education and contacting elected officials ranging from the Town of Lansing to New York Governor Elliot Spitzer.  "They're going to be on the tax role now," Pace said.  "They're getting money from the Town at least for this year.  They're going to get money from the County, money from the State, money from the federal government.  So I'm going to get taxes five ways for a library that we really don't need in this town."

Lansing Town Supervisor Scott Pinney wasted no time in addressing problems he says plague the Planning Department.  Pinney read a detailed resolution proposing major changes in the structure and operation of the department in Wednesday's Town Board meeting.  The proposal calls for the elimination of the Environmental Planner position, replacing it with an Engineer/Planner/Department Supervisor post.  Additionally he called for the merging of the current Code Enforcement Officer and Building Inspector positions. 

"For over two years the Town Board, individual Town Board and Planning Board members have been receiving complaints from developers and members of the public about planning board process, procedure, and service," Pinney read.  Department issues within the Planning Department has incurred many excess expenses and liabilities arising from these complaints.  Many of these complaints have been deemed founded."

At Wednesday's Town Board meeting (Left to right) Town Clerk Bonnie boles, Town Attorneys Lorraine Moynihan Schmitt and guy Krogh, Supervisor Scott Pinney, Deputy Supervisor COnnie Wilcox, Councilmen Marty Christopher, matt Besemer, Bud Shattuck

Albany - In an effort to fight toll increases on the Thruway, New York State Senator Michael F. Nozzolio today announced that he will sponsor legislation that would remove the financial responsibility of the State's canal system from the New York Thruway Authority. The transfer of the canal system would remove a significant expenditure from the Thruway Authority and reduce the need for Thruway toll increases.

In a December interview with the Albany Times Union, Thruway Authority Executive Director Michael Fleischer was quoted as saying the canal "is a burden for the Thruway and the Thruway's users." Fleischer has stated his support for removing the Canal Corporation from the Thruway Authority, saying that the cost savings would avert increases in commuter tolls and fund more road projects.

It is all going to be about sticker shock.  When the shock wears off, it will be about doing the math.  This year will be the first time our tax assessments are reevaluated based on a three year cycle.  As if three years of assessment change isn't enough, our valuations will be based on 100% of market value, up from 85% in the assessments three years ago.

While changes in property values do go up and down, valuing property at its full value won't have much, if any, effect at all, because the amount of property taxes we pay is relative to the portion everyone else in the county pays.  So if your valuation goes up 15% and your neighbor's also goes up 15% the portion of the tax burden is the same as it was when your properties were both valued at 85% of their market value. 

"What it comes down to is that equity is what is important," explains Tompkins County Department of Assessment Valeria Coggin.  "We can assess you at a fraction of the value as long as it is an equal percentage of value for each and every parcel."

Opponents to the establishment of the Lansing Public Library suffered a setback Monday when School Board President Tom Keane announced that the board would not act on a petition presented to it last month.  The petition, signed by 138 school district voters and presented to the board by 30 year Lansing resident Dan Pace, charged that the election was invalid because procedures were not in place to validate each person who came to vote.

"The essence of the advice we received from counsel was that since the proposition to establish and provide funding for the school district library was approved by district voters, the board has no authority to schedule a further vote to reconsider this question," Keane said.  "So our legal council has said that once the issue is settled affirmatively we're done.  It is now in the hands of the library trustees."

Pace received a letter from Keane on Christmas Eve that explained that a revote is out of the school board's hands, but noted that a section of state education law allows anyone to send a petition to the Commissioner of Education.  Pace sent an appeal to the commissioner this Wednesday to conform with the 30 day time limit allowed for challenging a vote.  But library officials are optimistic that the vote will be upheld.  "We had a certified, legal election that established the board of trustees," says Marlaine Darfler, who as chairman of Friends of the Library led the push to get the library vote approved, and is now Vice President of the newly formed library board.  We're certainly moving ahead until we're officially told it is being challenged."

Lansing's Outgoing Supervisor Recalls Ten Years on Lansing's Town Council

Steve Farkas has served on the Lansing Town Board for nine and a half years, eight of them as Lansing Town Supervisor.  He grew up in Lansing, and even attended school in what later became the Town Hall and is now the Lansing Community Library Center.

During a career at the New York State Office of Children and Family Services that took him to the Adirondaks, he returned to Lansing, spending the last two years as Director of the Louis Gossett Jr. Center here in town.  During much of that time he also participated in local government, not only in Lansing, but in Clinton County as well.  He served on the Lansing Planning Board in the '70s, and was the town's first code enforcement officer before the Village of Lansing split off from the Town.

The Lansing Star met with him in his office in the Town Hall on his last day as Supervisor, and asked him to recall his last ten years in Lansing government.  The office had been cleaned out to make it ready for incoming Supervisor Pinney.  But Farkas was working , signing end of year bills and other tasks, including meeting with the Supervisor Elect to make the transition go as smoothly as possible.

Michael Koplinka-Loehr Elected Legislature Chair
Members of the Tompkins County Legislature elected Michael Koplinka-Loehr (D) as Chair of the Legislature for 2008. The position of chair, filled each year by a majority vote of the Legislature's 15 members, is responsible for overseeing all legislative functions.

Beginning his eleventh year on the Legislature and continuing in his third term, Mr. Koplinka-Loehr has for the past three years chaired the Legislature's Budget and Capital Committee and, for the three years before that, led the Government Operations Committee. Prior to his election to the Legislature, Koplinka-Loehr served three years on the Ithaca School Board. A native Ithacan, he holds a Masters degree in City and Regional Planning (1984) from Cornell University.

Lansing's Town Board approved $1,000 to pay for preliminary drawings of new ball fields that could be built on town-owned land across the street from the current ball fields.  Part of an agenda that new Town Supervisor Scott Pinney brought to the board's organizational meeting, it would be the first step in creating a town center where the current ball fields are located.  "We would take these fields and move them," Pinney explained.  "We would no longer have fields over here."

The reason for the move is that when the Town obtained the more than 150 acres between Auburn Road (34B) and the Gossett Center it came with deed restrictions.  It can be used for recreational purposes, but not for commercial or private building.  The Town Board has long considered applying to the State for a change to the condition, viewing the land as an ideal place to develop a town center.