Archive: Opinions

The argument has been made that Lansing needs a full time planner because by the time the taxpayers in the fastest growing community in Tompkins County pay for consultants to make up for what a part time planner doesn't have time to do, it will cost the Town much more that it would have cost to employ a full time planner in the first place.  Lansing is in the process of searching for a part time planner now.  Our elected officials need to stop arguing subjectively or theoretically about this and quantify it.  It should be a matter of simple math.

The Town needs to keep a ledger to document whether a part time planner plus consultants is, indeed less expensive than a full time planner, and whether the vital work of the Town can be covered by a part-time planner.

The Lansing government had an opportunity to do that over the past year, when Jonathan Kanter sat at the planner's desk.  Kanter, a highly respected and experienced planner, retired from the Town of Ithaca, ended up giving time above that he was paid for to the Town.  He often said he had a pile of tasks on his desk that couldn't be completed by a part time employee.  But as far as I know, nobody on the Town Board quantified the tasks, and nobody kept a leger of monies saved and spent.

I have listened to arguments on both sides of the issue, and while I want to agree with the full time side, I see the point that if we don't need a full time planner we shouldn't spend the money on one.  So I view the hiring of a new part time planner as a second chance to put this argument to rest, and to give our already way-overworked Code/Fire Enforcement Officer & Building Inspector Lynn Day a break.

The Town Board should appoint a subcommittee of two board members -- one who voted to hire a full time planner and one who did not -- plus the planner him or herself.  This committee should meet briefly once a week and have three tasks: to go through the list of items the planner should work on that are actually important to the Town and cull out those that aren't.  To decide which of those tasks the planner will have time to work on.  Then it should take the rest of the 'do' items and track the actual costs of completing them including any additional consultant or attorney fees and other expenses.

Last week the Town Board discussed hiring Kanter to complete his work with Lansing's Comprehensive Plan Update Committee, which Kanter previously predicted would take until around the end of this year.  That contract should be the first thing on the list of 'additional expenses'.

By having one person from each side of this argument there will be no wiggle room on the list of needed tasks.  If they don't both agree something is needed it will be deemed not needed.  The money itself is simple arithmetic.  The Town Board approved $55,000 for a full time salary plus whatever the benefits would have cost.  If Lansing spends significantly more over the next year then the full timers are right and the Town should make the position full time.  If the Town spends less than the part timers are right.

Board members on either side of the argument should be thrilled to participate in this kind of audit.  Both sides have argued their way would save Town money.  So each side should be confident that this reckoning will prove their point.

And if a year isn't enough time in the opinions of the two opposing board members, then they can decide what is.

Proponents and opponents of a full time position agree that the professionalism and experience of Jonathan Kanter benefited the Town in countless ways.  Kanter himself was a strong advocate for hiring a full time planner.  But the Board missed an opportunity to prove that full or part time is in the best interest of the taxpayers.  It may be possible to go back over expenses from last year and come up with some numbers.  It is definitely possible to come up with numbers that nobody can refute over the coming year, once a person has been hired.

The results should be posted on the Town Web site because I have heard both sides complain that people are speaking out without knowing the facts.  So get the facts, give them the facts, and make future decisions based on the facts.

It's not rocket science.  It's arithmetic.  But you've got to actually do the math.

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