Archive: News

William Burin has lived in Lansing all his life. A retired Ithaca policeman, he has raised several foster children over 25 years. A Democrat, he is running unopposed for a fourth term as Town Justice, one of the two judges who preside in Lansing.

Although he is running unopposed we felt residents would like to know about who they are voting for, and Judge Burin agreed to talk to the Star about his candidacy. We met in his office in the Town Hall Thursday (11/03).

With energy costs sky rocketing the Lansing Board of Education is considering entering into an Energy Performance Contract.  Doing so can cut energy costs and would have the added benefit of taking energy saving items out of the proposed capital project, either reducing its cost or leaving room in the proposed budget for other needed items.

The school district's Interim Business Administrator Larry Driscoll explained how the contract works.  A company specializing in energy savings conducts an evaluation of the campus, identifying energy saving measures and estimating energy savings based on current usage.  They commit to this level of savings, and if it is not met within the term of the contract they write a check to the school district for the difference.  Entering into a contract of this sort does not require voter approval.

There are three candidates running for two seats on the Town Board.  Bud Shattuck is an incumbent running for another term.  The second seat is being vacated by Doug McEver.  Mr. Shattuck, Matt Besemer and Greg Lawrence are running for the two seats.  Voters will choose two candidates to fill the seats.

At last week's school board meeting Interim Superintendent Tiffany Phillips told the board that she has been exploring alternatives to the current School District Office. A new District Office had been included in early drafts of the new Capital Improvement Project, but was removed because the cost was too high.

"The work space is not appropriate for a couple of reasons," she told the board. "One, confidentiality. Two, there's no place for storage of materials. And it's just not a place that you want to represent the school district."

Matt Besemer has lived in Lansing for 11 years. He and his wife are raising two young sons here, and he is Vice President of his family's business, Cayuga Crushed Stone, on Portland Point Road. He is running because of his interest in keeping taxes under control and planning for growth in the town, among other issues. The youngest of the three candidates, he has a firm grasp of key issues facing Lansing.

 

Click here to view a comparison chart of all Town Board candidates.

He spoke to the Star in his office last Tuesday (10/25) where he discussed important issues facing the town and how he would like to address them.

Greg Lawrence is a librarian at Cornell's Agricultural Library. He recently became interested in Town Government, at first agreeing to fill in when local Democrats had trouble finding a candidate, then deciding to actually run.

Click here to view a comparison chart of all Town Board candidates.

The Star caught up with him in his Myers Heights home last Tuesday (10/25), just a day after he underwent foot surgery.

Blake Hunter"My Mother was asleep.  I said, Mommy I see smoke," says four year old Blake Hunter. It was 1:15am Thursday (10/21) and Meredith Sears was sound asleep when a short circuit in her electric stove started a fire. Blake ran to her room, put clothes against the bottom of the door to keep the smoke out and woke up his mother.

It wasn't easy waking her up, but he persisted until she understood there was a problem. "I opened the door and the rest of the house was dark. I could see the glow and hear the crackle of the fire," she says. She put the fire out, then got a neighbor to take Blake while she called the Fire Department.

This week we interviewd the three candidates for the two open seats on the Town Board.  Voters will vote for two candidates from among the three.   We asked each the same questions so that you can compare "apples to apples" when deciding who to vote for.

Click here to view a comparison chart of all Town Board candidates. Read the interviews: Bud Shattuck (R) Matt Besemer (R) Greg Lawrence (D) Note:  Incumbent Town Judge William Burin is running unopposed in this year's election.

For all the election charts and interviews for Town and County, click the "Elections" button in the main (blue button) menu.

A Candidate's Notes...

Hurf Sheldon (D) is running against Mike Sigler (R) for the County District 6 Board seat (view chart and interviews) in the November 8 election. Both candidates attended the Chamber of Commerce "Meet the Candidates" event and Mr. Sheldon shared this account with the Star.  -- Editor

It went well - the format was a table for each district (15) with Chamber Of Commerce (CoC) members from the respective districts at the tables as well - after brief introductions by JeanMcPheeters , CoC chair (and a pitch to pay attention to the CoC position on two referendums re: balanced budget [no] and another issue they didn't have a position on yet (don't quite remember it)) discussions at each table were led by a CoC member from from that district with a list of questions.

Tensions were evident between the Town and Village of Lansing when the Town Sewer Committee met this Wednesday. The conflict is over which route a trunk line will take to bring the Town's waste through the Village to the Cayuga Heights treatment plant on Route 34 near the Route 13 ramp. Of the three proposed routes, the Town favors a gravity feed line along the old Ithaca Auburn Railroad bed that is largely owned by private homeowners now, because they ave determined it is considerably less expensive than the other routes. The Village favors Route 34, because it will cause the least disruption to Village residents.

Several weeks ago the town extended its October deadline to December to allow the Village time to conduct its own engineering survey to support the choice of the route they favor for the trunk line. The Village plans a public informational meeting November 7 before making its route recommendation. Officials are sending letters to homeowners who may be affected by any of the three routes, so they can get feedback on the issue before deciding on their recommendation.

The Lansing Community Library Center (LCLC) wants to become a School District Chartered Library. This is the next stage in the library's development, which will move it to a tax-supported entity if the voters approve it in May of 2006.

"This is something we've always wanted to do," says Chartering Committee Chairman Cliff Buck, "but when we started New York State was not entertaining any new charters. They began doing so about a year later. This is a window of opportunity, so we're actually doing it sooner than we expected."