Village of Lansing

MINUTES of a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Village of Lansing held on Monday, March 5, 2001, in the Village Office.

PRESENT: Mayor Donald Hartill; Trustees Larry Fresinski, Frank Moore and Janet Beebe; Village Attorney Randy Marcus.

Mayor Donald Hartill called the meeting to order at 7:37P.M. He opened the public comment period. There was no public present so he entertained a motion to close the public comment period.

Motion-To Close the Public Comment Period

Mayor Donald Hartill- Aye Trustee Frank Moore- Aye Trustee Lynn Leopold- Absent Trustee Larry Fresinski- Aye

Trustee Janet Beebe- Aye

The next item on the agenda was to set the election place, date, time and compensation.

RESOLUTION # 3742 - Village of Lansing Elections

Mayor Donald Hartill- Aye Trustee Frank Moore- Aye Trustee Janet Beebe- Aye Trustee Larry Fresinski- Aye

Next on the agenda was the approval of minutes.

Mayor Donald Hartill-Aye Trustee Frank Moore-Aye Trustee Janet Beebe- Aye Trustee Larry Fresinski- Aye

Jodi gave each board member an outline of the general, water and sewer funds. This outline has what was actually spent in 1999-2000, what was actually spend in the current fiscal year through 1/31/01, the current budget and a column for the proposed 2001-2002 budget figures. Don started off the budget discussions by giving the Board an overview of the whole process. He explained that in the past he had done a tentative budget but he found that people didn’t really understand the details. Last year he assigned sections to each trustee and it worked well. He wants to do it this way again this year.

In the general fund on the income side, Chip’s funds should be the same. There may be some Marchecelli Funds available. The federal proposed budget is down by 5% for highway funding but this shouldn’t effect us. The six largest sources of income for the general fund are:

2. Sales Tax Revenue ~$300,000

3. Gross Receipts Tax from utilities ~$300,000

4. Chips State Highway Funds ~$50,000

5. Interest Income ~$50,000

6. Mortgage Tax of which ½ goes to State & ½ to Village ~$100,000

The Village’s biggest expenses are road maintenance and personnel.

In the Water Fund we collect money and pay SCLIWC for the water. We need to determine the % surcharge to pay for I&I. We are looking at replacing the Burdick Hill water line. We have had many breaks there. The Bond Anticipation Note (BAN) is another funding mechanism that can be utilized. With a BAN the amount is charged on your taxes and not as a surcharge on our water bill.

The Sewer Fund gets it’s money from the sewer surcharge, connection fees and interest income. The Sewer Rent which appears on your tax bill is the amount that goes directly to the Village of Cayuga Heights for letting us use their sewer plant.

Appropriated Cash Surplus is the amount of money that the Village didn’t spend last year and can be used the following year. If this amount is constant than we are doing good. Our biggest fluctuation is for the North Triphammer Road Project. The Village of Lansing has the lowest tax rate of any Village in the region. We contract with the Town of Lansing for our snowplowing and fixing our water main breaks.

The Mayor assigned each trustee a section of the budget to work on.

Larry-Roads

Janet-Personnel, Youths and seniors

Frank-Water

Lynn-Planning

The basic strategy is to look at last year and see if we spent it. Our goal is to keep increases to no more than the rate of inflation. We have no major projects other than N. Triphammer Rd. Larry stated that we will need to budget for the INET. If there are projects in the budget that we don’t get to this budget year we can encumber the money to be used in the next budget year. (Example-audio/video in the conference room)

Next on the agenda were the Mayor’s comments. He asked Larry if he had heard any more on burying the utilities when we reconstruct N. Triphammer Rd. Larry was still waiting to hear back from NYSEG. Verizon gave him a ballpark estimate of $800,000. They said the biggest expense was $25,000 per manhole. Don asked Larry to check into this again because most of the businesses along N. Triphammer are connected by services lines that are already underground. He also added that it doesn’t have to be totally underground that he doesn’t mind having surface connections. Larry will call Verizon again.

Don commented that Janet Waterman had written a very nice editorial for the Ithaca Journal.

Don and Steve Farkas, supervisor for the Town of Lansing, wrote a counterproposal letter in response to the Draft Joint Sewer Agreement. The main points were that the Lansing’s didn’t support the distinction of agricultural lands in the new proposed service areas, we prefer the up front buy in cost at $6 per gallon and the concern of the shared cost of existing transmission lines needed to transfer the redirected sewage flow from the Kline Road bypass to the Ithaca Area plant. Don was very optimistic after he left the last sewer meeting.

The other component of the sewer situation is how the Village of Cayuga Heights fits into all this. The Town of Ithaca has requested and was granted an independent audit of the books. Brent is calling most of the shots in the Village of Cayuga Heights. Basically the Town of Ithaca and the Village of Lansing pay for the plant to operate.

It was projected that the cost to pay for the EIS would be $100,000, however, the cost for a consultant is up around $200,000. The Village’s share will be $54,000. We’re still waiting for a draft agreement and for DEC to rate the capacity of the Cayuga Heights plant. The EIS process will be one year. The Kline Road Bypass will probably take place in 2002.

When the Edelman’s gave the land gift to the Village part of the resolution to accept was contingent on receiving the 70 ft. strip of property which is the access road that comes out at Coventry Walk. To accept this piece of property a subdivision approval would have to be done. At the Planning Board meeting they discussed that this would have to be done with every piece of property along N. Triphammer Road also. It was decided that this could be simplified if we were to amend the subdivision regulations to add an exclusion so not to consider it a normal subdivision. Roads don’t have tax map numbers. Randy will draft a proposed amendment to present to the Planning Board next week so that, if the Planning Board recommends adoption, the Board of Trustees can hold a public hearing at their next meeting.

Mayor Donald Hartill-Aye Trustee Frank Moore-Aye Trustee Janet Beebe- Aye Trustee Larry Fresinski- Aye

Randy gave an update on the N. Triphammer Rd. property acquisitions. He has 2 signed deeds, which the Board decided to pay at the same time as the vouchers on Wed. He has 13 signed contracts and is expecting another 15 any time now. Jodi will get in touch with HSBC and Mobil again and Don will contact Joyce Rendano.

Trustee Lynn Leopold-Aye Trustee Larry Fresinski- Aye

Trustee Janet Beebe-Aye

The meeting adjourned at 9:50 P.M.

Jodi Dake

Village Clerk