- By Dan Veaner
- Opinions
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Triphammer Torn Up; Town Debates Benefits for Non-traditional Couples; Cell Tower Approved -- Those were some of the stories 12 years ago on the front page of the first issue of the Lansing Star. Volume 1, Issue 1 hit the Internet on July 22, 2005, and has published 48 issues every year. A lot has changed since then, though a lot is the same. The Town is considering another proposed cell tower. Triphammer was torn up again only a year ago. And the Town continues to consider employee benefits.
And sewer. In light of the sewer projects -- four, I believe, and two during the tenure of the Star -- that never came to fruition, the most significant story in this week's issue is probably... you guessed it. Sewer is coming to Lansing, not in the ways envisioned by town-wide sewer committees in the past, but it will be seeping, if you will, up North Triphammer Road. The first beneficiaries will be two new developments plus The RINK, which is building a new climbing wall as well.
Another very significant issue in Lansing, perhaps one that impacted residents the most dramatically, has been the significantly decreasing value of the Cayuga Power Plant, the Town's largest taxpayer. While the loss in tax revenue, especially for the Lansing schools, has been debilitating, it hasn't quite crippled the Town as much as was anticipated. A major push by Town officials to encourage development and long term planning by school administrators have staved off huge tax rises. According to school officials that is really paying off this year, when a major tax rise for homeowners was anticipated. With $21 million of new value on the tax rolls, the school tax rate this summer is anticipated to rise about 1%, which means a $40 impact on a $200,000 house.
Additionally a historic 18MW solar farm was announced by the company that owns the power plant, and plant officials have said they hope to repower that plant with natural gas, not at ratepayers' expense, which should reverse its plummeting value.
For the second time the Town is attempting to sell land across Route 34B from the town ballfields, land that was, at one time, contemplated for a town center. While the town center idea may still happen it seems less likely today. The one thing to do with that property that has prevailed is the notion that the Lansing Center Trail should remain, and any new construction should be planned to preserve it, if not add to it.
I always like, at anniversary time, to thank our volunteer columnists and reporters who have made it possible for a tiny mom and pop newspaper to exist. The current batch are Monroe Payne (Within Reach), Margaret Snow (Dear Margaret), Doug Scott (Pet of the Week), and Louise Bement (Lansing Bicentennial Minute) -- there have been many more over the years, who wrote recurring columns, sports reports, and stories on events or opinion pieces. We get a lot of positive feedback (I always forward it to the authors) on these columns and articles. The Bicentennial minute was Karen's (who is the business side of the Star and also a talented photographer who contributes many picture features) idea, and Lansing Historian Louise Bement ran with it. It is fun to read about past events that happened in nearby places. After a while I decided to collect all the 'Minutes' as they accumulate. If you mouse-over the 'Around Town menu item you will find them in the drop-down list that results. Or you can just click here.
I like to say that it is bad for most people to have issues, but in the case of a newspaper it is bad not to have them. One of the most interesting things about publishing he newspaper has been what sets people off. We get a lot of praise from people who agree with this article or that, and excoriating blasts from others who disagree with whatever. In these times, when there seem to be two very passionate opposing camps on just about any subject, it is a sure bet that somebody is going to be angry.
Another piece of that is the catch-22 that as a local newspaper person most people seem to assume I know about everything that is going on in town. As a result they don't think to tell me. So, like Sargent Schultz in "Hogan's Heroes', I know nothink!!!
For my part I like covering whoever is doing whatever at any given time. One of the biggest perks of reporting the news is getting to meet news-makers in person and looking them in the eye while asking them questions. I am honored when it turns out they remember me -- they actually do! And for the most part they are forthcoming on the various items that become news.
I get to see them as people, not just the objectified cartoon characters Repubilcans like to characterize Democrats as, and Democrats like to characterize Republicans as. I begin to understand why they stand for what they stand for, even if I don't personally agree with them. It takes a lot to put yourself out there to represent your fellow citizens. Look how hard it often is to get local candidates. At least one year during the Star's tenure there actually weren't enough school board candidates.
So I have come to regard anyone who runs for office as a hero, and those who serve -- even when I strongly disagree with everything they stand for -- as worthy of admiration. This is why I have no respect for the 'I didn't vote for Obama' or the "Trump isn't my president' people. It is easy to criticize our leaders (and the press, for that matter. A lot of people have indicated over our 12 years that they could do it a lot better, though none stepped up to actually do it), but there is one thing you can say about every single one of them, no matter what their politics: they stepped up.
One of my favorite experiences was in 2010 when then Congressman Michael Arcuri (a Democrat, by the way) and I rode in the back seat of a pickup truck on a tour of Turek Farms. Not unlike this week, there had been a lot of rain and the fields were very muddy. The truck nearly got stuck in the mud. I was thinking to myself, 'Here I am taking a ride with a US Congressman. And if this doesn't go well I'll be slogging through the mud to get back to dry land with a US Congressman!' Meanwhile he was unperturbed, asking questions about the migrant workers we could see picking squash and cauliflower.
The answers were not what I expected. The stereotype is that farmers hire migrants because they are cheap. While I am sure that is part of it, it turned out that they hired migrants because they couldn't find enough residents who wanted field work. That is another great part of reporting. People surprise you all the time. It challenges your assumptions. And you learn something.
In anticipation of being accused of bias for the Arcuri memory, I'll also recount walking through Boiceville Cottages in Caroline last year with our current Congressman, Tom Reed. There was something about walking through this very charming small and tiny house community, the design of which was literally based on storybook illustrations with a conservative congressman. What went through my head was that a hobbit might come out of one of the houses at any moment, and I had never put 'Republican Congressman' and 'hobbit' together in the same thought before.
Then again, I probably never thought of Democratic congressmen and hobbits either. By the way, the Congressman seemed to love the place. I did, too, even though we didn't actually meet a hobbit.
There are also those rare moments that just happen. In March of 2011 I reported on a proposed underground pipeline that would transport cow manure to be used as fertilizer from a farmer's land in Cayuga County to a field in Lansing. The headline was, 'Town Considers Poopline Permit'. Karen and I were sitting around one evening when I started giggling. She asked me what was funny. I had been checking the readership statistics for the month, and I told her that the 'poopline' story was the number two story for the month of March.
Seriously, it actually was!
I could go on and on, but I'll spare you. This week (tomorrow, July 22, officially) begins the 13th year of the Lansing Star. I can't wait to have issues!
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