Archive: Opinions

This is the third week in a row that I have told myself I wasn't going to opine about the sewer project.  But one of the criticisms I have heard about the sewer presentation (which you can see on the Town Web site if you missed it) has stuck in my mind because it is dumb.  So here I go again...

It is the argument that the presentation was a 'sales pitch'.  Of course it was a pitch.  Do you think the people who worked for more than a year (some for many, many years) on a proposal are going to present it in a negative light?  Why on earth would they have put in that work if they didn't think it was a good idea?

One of the hurdles the Sewer Committee had to jump over was getting the Town Board to support the project.  At one point it was anything but certain that they would.  Half the board had serious objections.  The project morphed more than once until it was reformed in a way that all the board members would support.  While committee members have always thought it is a good idea, they thought it would be a bad idea to go forward if the Town Board couldn't support it.

This was a good exercise - the board is somewhat philosophically split, and it is fair to say that the different points of view in the Town are represented.  So getting the board on board was an important element if there is to be a chance of the townspeople supporting the project. 

Another thing that has stuck with me is the question of who benefits from the sewer.  The yaysayers say we all benefit, while the naysayers say that developers principally benefit.  That leads to the observation that there is a developer and a real estate agent on the committee who may have a vested interest in sewer development.

Here is why this doesn't bother me: they only get one vote.  Forming a project proposal is a different beast from approving it.  Part of the Town's intention is to attract developers who will cooperate with the Town's plan for development.  If you doubt that, why did the Town put out an RFP asking developers to respond with proposals for developing the town center land?

There is no point in sewer if it doesn't attract the right kind of development, so it makes sense to have a developer on the committee, with full disclosure, of course.  Nobody has ever tried to hide the composition of this committee, and no one committee member has any more influence over your vote than anyone else on either side of the debate. 

What would not make sense would be if there were many developers on the committee.  But even if there were, the failsafe is that if they own land in Lansing they only get one vote, same as you, same as me.  As the Town Attorney has explained it, it doesn't matter how many parcels you own in the town -- you only get one vote.  So it makes a lot of sense to have a developer's point of view as well as other points of view in the plan that will appeal to people like me and to people like you.

Dumb arguments diminish the believability of the many valid arguments -- on either side of the debate.  When people get passionate about their position they are bound to reach.  But a better approach is to be sure to get the facts and base arguments pro or con on those facts.

Should the speakers have gotten up on the Middle School stage and told us they thought it is a lousy idea to have sewer in Lansing?  That would have been a collosal waste of time.  The presentation included a lot of information about the project that any informed voter is going to need, and yes, it was a pitch.  As well it should be.

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