Archive: News

With rising costs, an aging fleet, and plans for future expansion, representatives from Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit, Inc. (TCAT) asked Village of Lansing Trustees to consider contributing to the mass transit system.  Armed with a study of where rides initiate, TCAT board members Pam Makesey and Dan Cogan, and General Manager Joe Turcotte asked the Trustees to consider chipping in $140,000, a figure Cogan called the village's 'fair share' based on ridership statistics.  But the response wasn't exactly what they bargained for.  "Why a Village? exclaimed Trustee Frank Moore.  "You have Pyramid, you have the hospital complex, you have the airport, Borg Warner... why not get people to kick in based on the benefit they get from TCAT?"

Trustees were quick to point out that because one of two top retail areas in the county are within Village boarders, the area is bound to attract a lot of bus and other traffic.  Trustee John O'Neill said that rides initiating in the Village are not an accurate measure of where riders are coming from, because many people come to the Village to shop before boarding another bus to go home.  Officials also pointed out that the Village has one of the smallest populations of municipalities within Tompkins County.

With changes in State mandates, the Lansing Fire District is now required to hold a public budget hearing to get input from the public before the Fire Commissioners approve the following year's budget.  The District held its first annual budget hearing at Central Station Tuesday night to explain the $1.2 million 2008 budget.  Nobody showed up except this reporter and Town Councilwoman Connie Wilcox, who is the Town Liaison to the fire district, a few volunteer firefighters and the five fire commissioners.  Still, the news was good.  "The tax rate will be $1.02 per $1,000 assessed value," says district treasurer George Gesslein.  "That is the same as last year."

Even when the tax rate doesn't rise, your taxes can be higher if the valuation of your property goes up.  But Gesslein says that won't happen for most Lansing residents this year.  "The assessed valuation is $1,096,273,707," he says.  "Believe it or not that is only about a million dollars more than it was last year."

Health Department Building Construction Committee Established
Legislature Chair Tim Joseph tonight announced that he has charged a new special committee of the Legislature with guiding design and renovation of a new county Health Department headquarters on Brown Road in the Village of Lansing.

The committee, chaired by County Planning and Public Works Commissioner Ed Marx and made up of legislators, department managers, Health Department and Public Works staff, will participate in selection of a design team, then will work with that team to ensure that the building meets the needs of programs, staff and public who will use the building. The committee is charged with working within adopted administrative policies regarding space standards and within the budget established by the County's capital program, ensuring that the building is both energy and cost efficient and is consistent with sound health and environmental standards.

Legislators acting as an Expanded Budget Committee continued in their process of recommending revisions to the 2008 tentative Tompkins County budget presented by County Administrator Steve Whicher more than a month ago. Their recommendations include target funding for two positions: a forensic counselor in the Mental Health Department and a part-time position in the Youth Services Department to serve troubled youth.

The committee recommended the following changes to the budget, which could be reconsidered in future sessions and will require approval by the full Legislature to become final.

Sheriff Peter Meskill was at the Lansing Town Board meeting Wednesday to see what services his department could render the Town.  Meskill said he had already had a conversation with Supervisor Steve Farkas about traffic problems in the Myers Park area.  "I just wanted to stop by to see if there is anything you need or your residents need for specific areas or problems with traffic or crime," Meskill said.  "I'm interested in that information so I can take it back to the people I work with to address your needs."

Deputy Supervisor told Meskill that some residents were concerned about speed on Triphammer Road, and had complained about it at a Lansing Town Meeting NY Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton conducted a few weeks ago.  "A couple of long-time residents of Triphammer Road were complaining about the speed limit," he said.  "One of the thoughts was that if the speed has been picking up since the redid Triphammer road that may be one of the spots that you want to patrol once in a while"

One of the most striking images of the August 1 Interstate 35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis was a yellow school bus on the brink of a chasm that meant the difference between surviving and plunging into the Mississippi River. 

Last weekend Lansing Fire Department volunteers spent a morning training to get kids out of a bus if the worst happens.  The department bought a used Lansing School bus from an individual who owned it, and lifted one wheel onto a car.  "We made a scenario of a car that ran under a bus," explains Chief Scott Purcell.  "We're working on multiple ways of getting into a bus using different techniques and theories using different tools to access the bus."

The four hour training session was conducted by Churchville Fire Equipment 's Kevin Romer.  The company sells equipment to fire departments, and offers the training as well.  A firefighter himself, Romer has actually used the techniques he teaches in real bus accidents.  "Because of the amount of training sessions that I do, I know what works and what doesn't," he says.

Connie Wilcox has been the lone Democrat among a Republican Town Council for four years. But her peers respect her so much that local Republicans endorsed her in this year's election so she will appear on both tickets. Wilcox has deep roots in the community. She has lived in Lansing 54 years, and lived a stone's throw over the border in Cayuga County when her family moved to Lansing when she was five years old. She has been married to husband Ed Wilcox for 15 years.
 
Her two sons work at the Lansing Highway Department. Charlie ‘Cricket' Purcell is the deputy Highway Superintendent, and Scott Purcell is the fire chief at the Lansing Fire Department. "I'm really proud of both my boys," she says. "Sometimes it makes it hard on them working for the town, because I don't cut them a break!"

She is retired from Bovis Lend Lease, where she was the director of Business Development. But she is busier in retirement than when she was working, with a part time job as bookkeeper for a Genoa company as well as catering. She is involved with the North Lansing Fire Auxiliary, which her mother Irene Tyrrell and grandmother Elsie Sharpsteen have been mainstays of since its inception. Wilcox met with the Star at Lansing Town Hall to talk about why she is running for a second term as Town Councilwoman.

After mulling the County's proposed 2008 budget for nearly a month, Legislators acting as an Expanded Budget Committee tonight began recommending modifications to the $72 million tentative budget County Administrator Steve Whicher presented to the Legislature on September 14th.

Two of the recommended changes restored to the budget were two staff positions that the administrator had indicated could not be included and remain within the Legislature's 2008 guideline of a tax levy increase of no more than 2 percent: a Criminal Investigator position in the Sheriff's Department and a Community Health Nurse for the Health Department. Increased collections funding for the Tompkins County Public Library also was recommended.

Last weekend the Tompkins County Quilter Guild took over The FIELD for the 2007 Traditions and Beyond Quilt Show.  Hundreds of quilts and fiber art by local artists were on display, including about 260 entries, 50 or 60 quilts for the small quilts auction, and over 100 postcard-sized quilts.  "It started when they did the big resurgence of patriotic art for the Bicentennial," says organizer Melanie Towner.  "They had their first quilt show in 1976.  Now it's more arts quilts and quilts that are machine quilted.  In the past they were very traditional kinds of patterns and hand quilting.  You don't see many traditional patterns here this year."

Indeed, the exhibit was filled with creative and unusual designs with names like 'Molten Lava,' 'Giant Cell,' 'Rain Forest Spirits,' and 'Tink's Milkyway.'  Original clothing, dolls, soft sculpture added more variety to the mix.

Last Friday found New york State Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton holding a town meeting at Lansing Town Hall.  While attendance was low probably because it was scheduled on a work day, the discussion was lively.  A former teacher, Lifton started out talking about what she called the critical issues that state government faces, including health care, jobs and the economy, and her favorite topic, education.  She said that State support for education has been eroding.  "To keep the budget down they're laying off staff, cutting programs, a little, little bit at at time," she said.  "Fifteen, twenty years ago Albany was paying about 50% of the overall education tab.  Now Albany is only paying 37%."

Lifton, a Democrat, has been fiercely political in her public appearances and literature, blaming Republican Governor Pataki for policies she deemed hurtful to New Yorkers, and positioning herself as fighting for the various programs she stands for.  Now that Democrat Eliot Spitzer is in the governor's chair, she has shifted the blame to the Republican majority in the State Senate as well as the Bush administration in Washington.  "I'm the most hopeful than I've been for years," she said.  "We're heading in the right direction, but all the governors are over a barrel.  We're in this race to the bottom created to a combination of global treaties, and by the deliberate shrinking of the federal government based on the neo-conservative philosophy that the best government is no government.  What governor dares to raise state taxes and risk businesses leaving their state?"

Nozzolio Secures $100,000 in State Funding for Expansion in Lansing Empire Zone

Lansing - State Senator Michael F. Nozzolio announced today that BorgWarner Morse TEC (BWMT) will invest over $47 million and create 174 jobs to produce its new Variable Cam Timing product line in Lansing, New York. As part of a State assistance package through Empire State Development (ESD), Senator Nozzolio secured $100,000 for the expansion of the company.

"The expansion of BorgWarner Morse TEC will be another tremendous boost to the region, creating good-paying jobs for local residents," said Senator Nozzolio. "The company is making a major financial investment in our area and I was pleased to work with company officials in ensuring that BorgWarner TEC continues to grow in the Finger Lakes region."

So far Lansing's Board Of Education is on schedule with their search for a new superintendent of schools.  Board members hope to have a short list of final candidates so that interviews can be conducted on the 22nd and 23rd of this month.  The deadline for applications is today, October 5th.  "Applications are coming in," says Board of Education President Tom Keane.  "Our search firm has been reviewing applications and conducting phone interviews."

The district secured the services of education consultant firm Castelo & Silky  to advertise and recruit for the position.  That firm does the initial vetting of candidates and expects to produce a list of about a half dozen candidates to present to the board.  Board members will attempt to reduce that list to a final three on October 16th, at which point interviews will be scheduled.