The Lansing Town Board voted 3/2 in favor of a resolution in support of converting about 500 acres of forested and farm land with 3,400 feet of shoreline to a state forest.  The vote came almost exactly one year after Finger Lakes Land Trust Executive Director Andy Zepp asked the board to support the sale of the land owned by NYSEG to New York State.  Originally the land was intended as the location for the Bell Station nuclear plant, which was to be constructed in the 1970s.   That never came to fruition.  40 years later NYSEG has expressed some interest in selling the land to New York State for use as a state forest or a Wildlife Management Area.

Arguments for a state forest were that it would bring tourism dollars to Lansing and help local businesses.  Others argued that developing prime lakefront property for residential use would bring more tax dollars to the town.  In March Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Regional Director Kenneth Lynch came to Lansing to answer questions.  (Click here to view article)  At that time he noted that a state forest must include a minimum of 500 acres.  He said fewer acres could be designates a Wildlife Management Area.  If the land is designated as a Wildlife Management Area the State pays no taxes, but if it is set aside as a state forest New York automatically pays property taxes.

Wednesday nearly 90 interested residents came to the Lansing Town Hall.  25 of them spoke to the board on the subject.  Later each Town Board member told the crowd why they do or do not support the project.

	What Does It Mean? Wednesday's vote does not mean that there will be a state forest in Lansing.  New York State would not consider purchasing the land without the local municipality's support.  Wednesday's 'yes' vote means that the State may decide to buy the land.  If they decide to do so, it will go onto a list of properties to be purchased at some unknown time in the future, depending on the availability of funds.  The Finger Lakes Land Trust is acting as a sort of middle man to facilitate the project, but will not likely have an active role in managing the property if it finally does become a state forest. There are a lot of 'ifs'.  Wednesday's vote des not create a state property -- it simply tells the State that it's OK with Lansing if New York wants to purchase the property for public use if state money is ever available to do so.

Councilman Robert Cree:
After we heard there is still a question about... if it's 500 acres then a PILOT comes into play.  If it's less than that it requires state legislation (for the Town to receive PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes) revenue from the property).  Also, this doesn't provide any relief to the County either.  Somehow that's going to come back to all the residents, as well.

Councilwoman Ruth Hopkins:
We did receive a letter about the County's strategic plan for tourism.  The acquisition of this particular piece of land fits their number one and number two priorities.  They would be very happy with this.  I do understand what you're saying, but it fits their priorities.  They see the economic benefit to the entire region by doing this.

Councilman Ed LaVigne:
This is a unique opportunity to address you, the residents of Lansing.  To be quite honest, I'm concerned about where Lansing is going.  I hope that we don't have 'them and us' and 'us and them'.  I hope that we can discuss and at the end of the day take care of each other like brothers and sisters, because that's what Lansing's done in the past.

I've seen tonight that there's been some passion, and I'm French -- I know what passion's about.  You love birds.  I live with a birder.  I know about that and if anyone can find a way keep the woodpeckers from pecking my house I'd love to hear about it.

My wife walks Salt Point.  Just ask Reenie Baker Sandsted.  They walk together.  We're very fortunate that we live on the water.  That was our dream.  I understand how other people would love to have that. I understand about the park.  I understand about all of those things.

The reality is this: Pat Pryor and I, tonight, showed what compromise can do.  This idea with this old library (Pryor reported on the County Legislature's choices for using or disposing of the old County library building on Cayuga Street.  LaVigne suggested a combination of for-profit and non-profit use to put at least part of the building back on the tax rolls) was nothing about partial non-profit/partial-profit.  What it is about is being creative.  Rather than taking from each other and being disgruntled, and then take back when you're done, why don't we create an environment where there is mutual benefit for everyone?

Why can't we have part of that for your lake?  I walked it with Andy Zepp.  Its beautiful there.  There are some parts you're not going to put houses on.  And what you say tonight is true to a certain extent, but there are some assumptions.

There are commercial properties that do not put any burden onto the taxpayer because there aren't any roads.  Simply drive up to the top of the hill towards King Ferry, past the schools.  Bardon Homes are on your left.  Heritage is on your right.  There is no additional pressure to take care of those roads.

Mr. Morgan just built, I think it was, four new duplexes up there.  That's another million dollars in the tax pool.  No additional burden goes onb the highway department because it's off-road.

You go on Armstrong Road.  There are two buildings up there of rental units.  No additional burden to the highway department.  You go on East Shore.  There is no additional burden up there, past Colonial Cleaners.

These are things that can be worked out if we keep an open mind.  Everybody can have a piece of the pie, as far as that goes.  We work together.  That's what unity is about.  We have our differences.  I thank you for sharing your passions with me, because those things stick with me.

When Steve Colt reached out to me for a playground -- I don't have kids here.  I have no skin in this game -- but it was a good thing to do.  I hope we keep our goodness in mind.  I hope we're not premature about this.  If this will come, it will come because it was meant to be.  This discussion has started.  Let the process move forward.

I'm concerned that the first mouse doesn't get the cheese -- it's the second.  Let's wait and see how this happens.  Play it out.  Ask more questions of Mr. Lynch from the DEC.  Ask for more information.

You have the luxury of being passionate.  I don't.  I have to look out for other residents who, perhaps don't share the same passion, but they still pay taxes.  And taxes, to me, are the last resort, because when you take money from people -- because you have the right to do it -- if you don't do it properly, it shows disrespect.

Everyone tells me it's about cost-effective and tangibles.  On the contrary, it's about intangibles.  It's about getting along.  Being brothers and sisters in this same community.

Councilwoman Katrina Binkewicz:
I think we came to hearing that talk about it in November of last year, when (the Finger lakes Land Trust) first came and brought this proposal before the board.  It's an exciting concept.  As a girl scout I grew up playing in the woods around my home.  I had the luxury of playing on farm fields at my grandmother's.  But as this town becomes built upon, and houses...  and if we do not foster preservation of open space and of good agricultural land, we're not planning for the future for our children.

I don't think we're being precipitous.  We've been talking about this for a year.  We did not vote on it last time.  We decided not to vote for the resolution because we didn't want a cost to the taxpayers.  Even now with whether or not the power plant will still be a valuable asset to the Town -- we don't have anything set in stone.  We don't know if two years from now Borg Warner gets a better offer somewhere else.  We need to plan for our future, and that means diversifying our tax base.

Tourism is a lot of dollars in this county. Tourism dollars go mostly to other towns in this county.  Our toan is beautiful.  People in our town need jobs.  Our children need jobs.  Small businesses provide those jobs.

I was especially impressed by the passion of our business owners who came in tonight.  There are many letters from other business owners who are not here.  I think that speaks to a need.  So I am in support of this resolution.

Councilwoman Ruth Hopkins:
I want to thank everybody for coming out tonight.  I know it's tough to give up an evening.  I do hear this is something you care about deeply.

We did receive a goodly number of letters.  Those letters are available to anybody who would like to read them.  Each one of them has a separate story.  One of them shared his joy of walking on this land over the years.  He talked about the lucky stones on the edge of the shore.  I frankly think we would all be quite lucky if we were able to end up with this piece of land.

Town Supervisor Kathy Miller:
When this all started last year I had a number of concerns.  One of them was, quite frankly, the Town's liability.  Another one was taxes.  The other one was who would take care of this forest if it became a (state) forest.

We had the DEC out.  Andy was there.  We chatted for close to three hours.  It was open to the public.  They answered all of our questions.  It was at the community center and it was well advertised.

At that point I had my questions answered except for the taxes.  I waited for that to be resolved, and I think it has been in the resolution.

But I have to say that if this land were developed it would have at least one road that would be dedicated to the Town.  If its dedicated to the Town it's built to town specs and then we would take care of it. We would maintain it.  We would maintain the road when it starts to break down.  We would have to be sure that we would either replace it or keep it up.  We would plow the snow.  We would take care of the ditches along the side.

This is costly.  This is not on a main road.  They would have to move in.  And there might well be more than one road in there in order to have the number of houses.  So the idea that residential homes would bring in a lot of money... I think the fraction that was pointed out was a dollar to a dollar-sixteen -- collect a $1 and spend $1.16 -- is somewhere in the ballpark.

Developers will always tell us, 'I bring so much money into the town.  But they really take up a lot of services.  For me that's a wash.  I don't see that's necessarily a point to gain us a lot of dollars.

I think the potential for tourism is great.  And I, quite frankly, would like to see tourism so that we could support our local restaurants and all the other things that are local, even local farmers, because if you have a farm stand people will stop by.

My family comes down to the park.  A lot of times we go over to Taughannock and we walk the falls.  So it would be very nice to have something (in Lansing).  I think it really would bring people.  That's my impression.

The other thing is, this is something that could be lost to us, to everybody.  And not just us, but generations to come.  As Andy said, when you go up to the North end of the lake -- and we have a boat and we do it quite a few times a year.  We just see how far we can go that day -- it is.  It's all built up.  I've been to many other lakes and I've never been to one that's this built up.  Most lakes do preserve some sort of shoreline, but we haven't done a real good job in this area, in the Finger Lakes, at least on this lake.  They do it more in Seneca than here, and more in Skaneateles.

For that reason I feel that this could be a real plus for the Town.

The other thing is that all things would have to come together.  We don't know.  Even if we pass this resolution we're not sure that all these things will happen, that everything will gel so that this can come to fruition.  it may or it may not.  But if it does, then we will get the tax money for it.

I've talked to people in Danby that have forests, and Caroline and they're all very happy that they have them.  They think they're a real plus for their communities.  That's going to the horse's mouth to find out.  Are you glad you have it or no?  They are glad they have it, so I feel it would be a plus for our community.

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The vote to support the project was 3/2 with Miller, Hopkins and Binkewicz in favor of the resolution and Cree and LaVigne against.

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