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(Editor's note: For over four years Matthew and Aline Shulman published the Lansing Community News.  We are honored that Matthew agreed to write this editorial for our first issue.)

After an absence of nearly five years, Lansing once again has a home-grown, community newspaper of record.

From 1996-2000, the Lansing Community News did its level-best to deliver thorough, accurate and unbiased news coverage of Lansing issues and events; to offer features that captured the spirit of our people and their lives; and to venture editorial commentary that sought respectful common ground even when remarking about contentious issues.

Today's launch of the Lansing Star by Dan and Karen Veaner marks not only the return of this soulful approach to community journalism but also reflects the digital revolution in the way society communicates and many Lansing households seek information.

Though personalities and issues shift, some things have not changed in the past five years. Lansing continues to face the countervailing pressures of a vibrant community that holds the promise of economic prosperity along with fear that, somehow, traditional rural values are under siege.

Since our 2003 move, we've tried to keep up with Lansing and Tompkins County news. Even so, three issues seem to us to need attention:

  • Though today's School District issues differ from 2003, citizens' interest in high quality education that does not bankrupt our more economically modest property owners remains a constant concern.
  • Economic development needs to be encouraged within a context that protects the natural and social environment in which we live.
    • The need to protect concentrate growth in the southern end of town by finally providing municipal sewage service to South Lansing has not made significant progress over the past five years. The success (or failure) in implementing this project will:
      • either protect (or condemn) Cayuga Lake water quality from the proliferation of residential development in the southern end of town, AND
      •  either preserve (or condemn) the future viability of agriculture in the northern end of town.
  • However sympathetic I am to the philosophy behind individual well-intentioned County Board decisions over the past decade, their aggregate effect has become a catastrophic and unsustainable economic burden to many life-long residents. As election season approaches, incumbents and challengers need to be mindful that "politics" is most successful when it concentrates on human interaction rather than blind obedience to any given party line.
    • Incumbents need to avoid being defensive; re-assess their past actions; and develop constructive modifications.
    • Challengers need to avoid personal attacks and propose thoughtful alternatives to current policies.

Notwithstanding these, and other, issues, Lansing still remains, "not quite paradise, but a nice place to live."

Just look at the quality of parental involvement in the school system. Our parks and our recreation department are the envy of central New York. Name another town whose residents launched a successful library in the late 20th century? Consider the relative openness of governance; just about anyone who wants to be involved can find a welcome place to make his or her contribution.

And now, once more, Lansing has a local voice that will not only bring its own comprehensive reporting to benefit Lansingites, but will also incite other print and electronic media to become more competitive in their coverage of Lansing. (Ah! The miracle of competition).

To Lansing Star publishers, Karen and Dan Veaner, we offer our heartfelt wish that their enterprise be faithful and successful. To the Lansingites who will benefit from their efforts, we urge you to manifest your support of their efforts in every concrete way possible: letters, news tips, articles and financial aid.

When Aline and I shuttered the Lansing Community News in 2000, a great part of our regret was that Lansing was again dependent on regional rather than local coverage. That local coverage is present once more.

ImageMatthew and Aline Shulman now live in Williamston, North Carolina where they run The Roanoke Inn Bed & Breakfast and Matthew consults and is involved in several enterprises, including a radio show on local issues..  While in Lansing they  owned and operated the Lansing Community News as well as other endeavors including a taxi company.

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