Archive: Opinions

In an effort to reassure opponents, Lansing officials say their plans are not laws or ordinances, but simply guides to future goals.  That may be an expedient way to quell the fears of citizens who feel threatened by these plans, but let's face it -- it never quells them.  You look at their faces and you see knowing, sarcastic shakes of the head.  They're not stupid.  They do get that plans are guides, but they fear they will turn into laws.  As well they should.

Because why spend all that time and effort coming up with a plan if you don't intend to implement it?  I understand the impulse to assuage, but town officials and volunteers who put their blood, sweat and tears into these plans should simply own them. 

It's going to be one of two things: a cynical bid for power and the intention to implement a nefarious plan for personal gain, or an earnest attempt to get the feel of where the community wants to go and draw a road map to getting there.  Now, this is New York State and there is plenty of the former, especially in Albany and the so-called City.  But here in little ol' Lansing it seems to me that the latter is what kicked in, both with the Agriculture Protection Plan that was adopted last September and the Comprehensive Plan revision that seems likely to be passed later this year.

This is not to say that either plan is perfect.  Because to be perfect these plans would have to satisfy everybody.  That is never going to happen.  John Lydgate said, "You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time."  That truism is the bane of all governments (and comedians).

People who are threatened by the plans attacked the process, accused the committees and boards of not communicating adequately, and in one case during the Ag Plan hearings, compared the future impact of the plan to Nazi Germany.  That is not to say that their fears are wrong, but in order to get anything done you have to figure out how you are going to do it, and then do it.  It's a way, not the way.  Agreeing on a process is as contentious as agreeing on a plan.

The Town Board appointed the first iteration of a committee to create the revision in 2012.  It's the second half of 2016.  About 50 people are credited with working on the new revision.  The Town paid for a scientific telephone survey, and has solicited comments in other forms, and held two public hearings with the promise of a third.  The Town Hall was filled Wednesday night's hearing.  Wouldn't you think this could lead to a finished plan that mostly reflects the town's desires for its future?

One of the key things Comprehensive Plan Committee Chairwoman Connie Wilcox said at the end of last year when she was appointed was that it is time to get a plan approved so the Town can move forward.  She pledged to have a final draft to present to the Town Board for a vote before the end of the year, hopefully this summer.  She was right.  I can't tell you how many people I have heard say Lansing should do this until it has a comprehensive plan, Lansing shouldn't do that until it has a comprehensive plan.

Lansing has a comprehensive plan.  It's 10 years old, but it is in effect until a revision is adopted.  Lansing should start doing things.  But since there is so much resistance to doing things until the new revision is completed, it is time to get a final draft done and get it passed, then create committees to make recommendations to act on the plan and get grants and everything else that moves a municipality forward.  As they say in theater, "The curtain is going to rise on opening night whether you're ready or not." It's time to open the curtain.

And the Town should 'own' it.  It is true that it is just a plan and not a law, but if you have to continuously repeat that fact it gives the appearance of not entirely believing in it, which fuels the perception that some people have not been shy about sharing that the process was incomplete or flawed.  So make a plan and be confident about it.  Those who don't like it will get plenty of other chances, because these plans are living documents and changing them and the people who make them  is built into the very definition of a comprehensive plan.

Paul Simon famously crooned, "Make a new plan, Stan."  I don't know who Stan is, but that is good advice.  Make one.

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