Archive: Opinions

"Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America," President Barack Obama said n his inaugural address Tuesday.

I thought the new President's speech was pretty good.  He laid out the challenges and made a call to action.  He talked about how good old American values and hard work are the way out of our current economic mess.  Now it is a matter of figuring out what, specifically, that hard work will be.  On the local level it may be even more challenging as the outside forces of the wider world impact our community.

Some of the things that come to mind are the challenges our school board faces as it tries to recover from some bad financial decision making of past years, and the Town's struggles to try to create the infrastructure to make a town center possible, and grow business that will be beneficial to our particular community.  Sometimes these challenges seem insurmountable as the State tightens its budget and threatens aid to schools, and the State finds new ways to prevent or delay infrastructure from becoming a reality in Lansing.

"Our challenges may be new," Obama said.  "The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true."

I think Lansing has those qualities in abundance.  And intelligence -- I've joked that 'Lansing Disease' is 'too many smart people micromanaging everything'.  Even when that is true, a key piece of it is that there are a lot of smart, creative people here.  And I have seen glimmers of creativity in response to these troubles.

As soon as the State turned down the Town's request to build an affordable standalone sewage treatment plant Town Board member Bud Shattuck noted that there might be federal money in Obama's FDR-like plan that could make an even more affordable still sewer possible.  Sewer would benefit neighborhoods desperate for sewer such as Ladoga Park, offer an affordable option to the school district, and provide the infrastructure for a true town center.  Shattuck said that Lansing's representative to the County Legislature Mike Sigler had an appointment with our Congressman Michael Arcuri to discuss that and other possibilities.

That's an example of not being overwhelmed by larger forces, and finding creative approaches to using those forces to our community's benefit.  I hope that will work out -- it would certainly give the community a boost and it is in the letter and the spirit of Obama's plan.

Getting the state to stop sitting on the Warren Road sewer, which everybody involved wants and agrees to pay for -- would also help to keep good jobs here in Lansing.  It had better happen soon.  Town officials have been frustrated by the State Comptroller's office burying the project in its in-box.  But it reminds me of a story one of my college professors once told me about standing on one of his teacher's desk until the man listened and responded to him.  That was a creative way to get attention -- and results.

Lansing Central School District officials are facing a second grueling budget process this year in which more cuts will have to be made that will almost certainly involve personnel cuts.  But they are owning up to that responsibility and if last year's 'good start' was an indicator, they will do what has to be done.

While we're told that Tompkins County is a 'bubble of prosperity,' the fact is that Lansing families and businesses are feeling the crunch.  The Borg Warner layoffs are the most visible manifestation of that.  Small businesses are feeling the trickle-down effect as they can no longer afford to provide business for other businesses, which in turn lose the income they need to do the same.  To many Lansing residents the crunch is a real thing eating away at our wallets, our pensions, our savings.

"It has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom," Obama said

I guess that means all of us, working together for common goals that make the economic recovery something real in our own local community and not just some poetic disconnect that applies to the nation -- that big place out there.

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