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mailmanHere we go again.

The ever present assault on the wallets of the Lansing taxpayers to subsidize a second town center (the Village of Lansing is our first town center) with a taxpayer-funded sewer that must either be built or maintained by our taxes to make it financially viable for developers to build...yet another Lansing town center.

Of course the Taubs of the world and our familiar local developers always march out the same old milk and honey promises that we Lansingites have heard so often before.

They want us to trust that they have a magic crystal ball that sees into the future, and that developing a second town center will bring us: "...over a million and a half dollars of taxes to the Town annually.  That's going to be great for everybody." and "...will relieve a tax burden..."

Yeah, right.

I've been holding my breath for 20 years waiting for my taxes to go down.  Let's take a trip down reality lane.  This is NY, where taxes don't go down, and if they do it's a tiny percentage and a fluke, and they go right back up.

But Taub's crystal ball promises more...they can predict human social patterns and behaviors: "...'baby boomers' will soon glut the market...they will want to sell their homes..."

And then what?  Buy Taub's homes, of course!  Yay!

But there is a catch...Taub sternly cautions Lansing taxpayers that we can only tap into their spigot of milk and honey if we: "...make certain that there is no challenge here that is insurmountable..."

Translation: "Build and maintain our sewer for us or we won't build Lansing a field of dreams."

Don't forget, sanitary sewer isn't the only infrastructure that will fall onto Lansing taxpayers to maintain.  Roads, streets, storm sewers, road salting and plowing and repairs, street lighting, etc. will all have long-term costs that developers always seem to forget to mention.

How many more hundreds of thousands of dollars of Lansing tax dollars have to be spent on more studies, plans, PR experts, trips to Albany, etc.?

When are we, Lansing taxpayers, going to require the Town Board to call a vote for any single expenditure that exceeds $100,000 or that will exceed $100,000 by the time all phases are complete?

This is the only way we can kill the perennial sewer and town center zombies-and make sure they stay dead forever.

Had enough?

Hugh Bahar
Lansing, NY
v10i5
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