Lansing Agriculture and Farmland Protection Plan – Page 2

“Tompkins County and Tammany Hall” – Rural Sprawl

Like the elite in any authoritarian social structure; Tompkins County uses the needs and fears of its citizens to control and direct their energy.

Coining new terms to make people believe they’re getting a new deal is as old a trick as targeting a group of people for suspicion and hate.

While Tompkins County may deny they are stacking the deck against the rural community; they won’t let anyone else touch the deck – or deal the cards.

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RURAL SPRAWL

“How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn’t make it a leg.” — Abraham Lincoln

. . . But if you keep on insisting his tail a leg – people will start to believe you.

This is the rationale behind the creation of the term: “rural sprawl” — a term designed to obscure the truth.

Since this chapter focuses on a single example, and the area’s Town and County comprehensive plans will be subject to a detailed examination in other chapters; I will merely outline the housing agenda in Tompkins County.

Ithaca; named the “Best College Town in America” is also reported as being the “8th most expensive city in the U.S. to raise a family.” The ability of landlords to rent a 3 or 4-bedroom apartment to students for far more than families can afford to pay, along with the high property taxes; have pushed out the college and business workers; and artificially forced the creation of urban sprawl bedroom communities in the outlying rural towns and villages.

While Ithaca planners designate block after block of their wood frame houses as historically important and surround the city with 3,800 acres of “conservation land” — the rural town of Lansing has 0 acres of conservation land; and its secluded 33-acre Salmon Creek Bird Sanctuary has been turned into a sanctuary for drug dealers and drug users through County cut-backs.

The best way for Ithaca to preserve its gentrified way of life – while expanding the colleges and increasing their importance as a business center – was to markedly increase the size and density of their urban sprawl “satellites.”

This is where the concept of “Rural Sprawl” comes in.

These sprawl bedroom communities became “identified” as Development Focus Areas for “compact residential development” – the County adopted a plan that categorized rural Lansing as an Emerging Node with the need for a municipal water and sewer infrastructure to support additional development in the area.

The awkward problem of urban sprawl – was suddenly the solution.

Increasing Tompkins County’s urban resettlement was now the only answer to “rural sprawl”: the new “Red Menace” of rural residents destroying the land, water, and future of the county.

[An interesting attribution for a rural community that had done just the opposite for over 200 years.]

The fact that “rural sprawl” and its attendant denunciations appear 11 times in the Town of Lansing Comprehensive Plan is not surprising — Cornell not only wrote the Town’s Agricultural Plan; it supplied all the planning for the Town’s Comp Plan as well.

By 2021; Lansing’s native residents were completely disenfranchised and marginalized – with incomers taking control of the government. This is how Urban Colonialism works in Tompkins County.

The “rural sprawl” argument is a patronizing pastiche that any rigorous questioning would expose; but in a dictatorship, even a pseudo-democratic one, you can’t change anything . . . and you don’t ask questions.

“Tompkins County and Tammany Hall” – The Map is not the Territory: The mapmakers are

Tompkins County policy making is a puzzle with thousands of pieces; all the same size, the same shape, and imprinted with the same design. No matter how many pieces you put together; the picture never changes — it just gets bigger.

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THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY

The mapmakers are

Sometimes it can be little things that point the most clearly to misconduct and undue influence in government policy making.

Removed from the shadows of bureaucratic justification: each piece tells a story of the ethics and intent behind these public policies — who receives the benefits — and how that affects the life of the community.

In this chapter; I will use the legal definition of fraud to examine a map that was used to support far-reaching policy decisions, summarize the results of that examination and its disclosure

The map is the “Town of Lansing, N.Y. Agricultural Property” map displaying the legend: “Agricultural Exemptions 2016”. The source is “Tompkins County Assessment Dept, 2016” and it contains the seal and imprint of the “Tompkins County Planning Dept”.

Fraud is commonly understood as dishonesty calculated for advantage. It can be proved by showing that the defendant’s actions involved five separate elements:

(1) A false statement of a material fact

Nearly half of the land marked as “agricultural property” in this map is not owned by agricultural entities; and is only rented for agricultural use. Much of this property is residential or commercially owned and rented for a little tax relief – in a county that has one of the highest median property taxes in the United States.

Although the map purports to show “Agricultural Exemptions” – much of the land marked does not receive any agricultural exemption. For example: only 40% of my neighbor’s land received an agricultural exemption; but 100% was marked as receiving it in this map.

(2) Knowledge on the part of the defendant that the statement is untrue

In a “clarification” email; the County’s Assessment Department admitted that they knowingly helped create a map misrepresenting the actual acreage receiving Agricultural Exemptions: “The intention of the map is to show the parcels that receive an agricultural exemption – it is not intended to show how much of each parcel receives an exemption.” Although this is clearly not the representation of this map; the Assessment Dept. still insisted: “The map is in fact correct.”

(3) Intent on the part of the defendant to deceive the alleged victim

This map was used to support preferential agricultural policies for a handful of influential farmers, including the unilateral creation of an Agricultural Zone, to the exclusion and detriment of 95% of the existing rural community — an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact. This is an “afterthought” piece of supporting evidence; created and added after the town’s Agriculture Protection Plan was already approved – what it claims to be is clearly, knowingly, and admittedly, not a true representation.

(4) Justifiable reliance by the alleged victim on the statement

This map is “signed off” on by both the County Assessment Dept. and the County Planning Dept.; it was included in the Town’s comprehensive plan, and was presented with those credentials as a factual representation. Residents were invited to place reliance on this map and approve the rezoning of half of the town from Rural/Agricultural to Agricultural only.

(5) Injury to the alleged victim as a result

This map was used by authorities to justify the enactment of restrictive policies against “non-farming” residents; further marginalizing the county’s rural poor — to promote Agriculture as the only preferred use of rural land, and to designate farmers as the sole and exclusive “stakeholders” in the rural community.

This map is included in the arguments of Town and County “representatives” who fostered citizen petitions to prevent the sale or rental of rural land for solar farms or for housing, and force highly-taxed rural landowners to sell cheaply to farmers; already the richest and most influential people in the community. The “consolidation” of rural land into the hands of ever-larger farming corporations; further enables the spread of “modern farming methods” that have been proven to cause “significant harm” to neighboring families.

A knowingly inaccurate map should neither have been created nor have been offered for inclusion in the Town’s Comprehensive Plan – a legal document that is described in NY Town Law as: “Among the most important powers and duties granted by the legislature to a town government.”

Additionally, whereas this map is offered as a proof of intent by the Town to protect land for continued agricultural use; the Town has sold the land that it rented for agriculture use to a housing developer — and a different Comprehensive Plan map shows that the Town plans to zone most of the agricultural land in the southern half of town for future residential and commercial development.

Just changing the legend and/or name of the map would only cover up the situation and retain any advantages that the misrepresentation has already given to the parties involved.

I sent these arguments in an email requesting that the County Legislature remove this map from its files and from any documents wherein it has been used, and to correct as much as possible the damage its use has caused.

Attachments included both the Agricultural Property map and the “clarification” email from the County Assessment Department.

There was no response or acknowledgement from any of the county’s 14 Legislators.

If it is ethics that give a government legitimacy; what does the County’s creation and continued use of this map represent?

The Town of Lansing’s 2016 Agricultural Property map is just one example of the deliberate misrepresentations that riddle the County’s planning agenda.

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – “Debunking the Ag Plan”

DEBUNKING THE AG PLAN

The three greatest factors in the fast-track approval of the Lansing Agriculture and Farmland Protection Plan were:

1. The plan was never critically examined or allowed to be publicly questioned.

2. Lansing’s rural families were unrepresented by any agency or government representative, and prevented from having any meaningful participation in the plan themselves.

3. The lives and welfare of rural families living in Lansing were of no importance to the people who created and supported this plan.

This article will examine the Lansing Ag Plan itself. The biggest difficulty in debunking the Ag Plan is that its 55 pages are filled with so much distorted, misrepresented, and false information that it would take an even longer report just to untangle it all. [A detailed examination and critique was submitted to all the planning parties prior to its approval.] I will select a few of the more egregious Ag Plan “inaccuracies” as approved by the Lansing Town Board and ratified by the Lansing Comprehensive Plan.

The Importance of Agriculture to the Local Community

“Agriculture is an immensely significant part of the Town’s economy…” states the Plan “Total farm product sales in the town are estimated to be around $20 million per year with about $17 million attributed to dairy farming.” — These sales are not “in town,” there are no milk processing plants or wholesale businesses in Lansing, and even the milk trucking company is located in another county. Lansing farms are closed systems, with almost all the sales money recycled within the business or paid to outside vendors — only a trickle is leaked to the local community.

“Total tax liability paid by farmers in the Town of Lansing – $945,407” — More than two thirds of this was for school taxes, and most of that money was returned to farmers through the New York State Farmer’s School Tax Credit: a program that reimburses farmers for up to 100% of their school taxes from taxes levied on other New York State residents.

Lansing farmers can also take advantage of:

The New York State Investment Credit, an investment tax credit for farmers at 4% of the purchase price of qualified real estate, equipment, livestock and other tangible business property acquired, constructed, reconstructed or erected during the tax year.
A 10-year property tax exemption for agricultural structures and buildings that exempts them from any increase in the property’s assessed value resulting from the improvement.
Complete exemptions on silos, grain storage, bulk tanks and manure facilities, and temporary greenhouses.
Reduced assessments on farm and forestry land.

In addition, New York tax law exempts farmers from state and local sales and use taxes for fuel, gas, electricity, refrigeration or personal property used for production/operation; motor vehicles used predominantly for production/operation; building materials used for farm buildings or structures; services to install, maintain or repair farm buildings or structures.

And they can still receive all of the Star and other tax relief measures that ordinary residents are entitled to.

“The town’s farms provide a variety of jobs and thereby strengthen the local economy.” — Once again, a statement that misrepresents the true facts. Many of these jobs are given to foreign workers who live in housing provided and owned by the farmer with food provided by the farmer, and send most of their money out of the country to their families [a worst case scenario for both local and national economies.] Local workers can’t compete with laborers that live on the farm 24/7 and can support their families on fraction of what locals have to pay.

If all the farms in Lansing disappeared tomorrow and the fields were turned to meadows, it would scarcely cause a ripple in the local economy — and the water and the air would be cleaner, the bio-diversity and health of plants and animals would be increased, the taxes would be reduced, and the quality of life uplifted.

Farmers are “Stewards of the Land”

The Lansing Ag Plan’s cover features pictures of fruit trees, rolling hills, and heifers in a grassy field with a traditional red barn and silos in the background, but something’s missing… CAFOs [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation] and the Industrial Farming experience. It’s the type of “agriculture” that comprehensive planners and committee members would never want their children to live next to, and it’s the reason why rural families have been made powerless to affect the future of their own communities.

The word CAFO is not mentioned once in the Lansing Comprehensive Plan — which is significant considering that Lansing is home to the largest CAFO in the county and has extensive farmlands owned by even larger CAFOs in Cayuga County. It’s as if, by not mentioning it and pretending not to notice it, they don’t exist. It’s time to acknowledge theses “sewers of the land.”

“Farming practices protect soil, environmental quality, natural resources, and provide scenic working landscapes that preserve the rural character and enhance the quality of life of the town.” — This is a lie: Influential agribusiness interests have worked hard to portray rural neighbors as villains, while covering up the aggressive and invasive changes in “modern farming practices” that have polluted the air, land and water, and seriously injured residents.

• Soil used in modern “farming practices” must be cleansed of pollutants before it can be used for Organic farming; and if these farming practices, “preserve the rural character and enhance the quality of life of the town”; why did the Ag Plan Committee need to exclude 95% rural community from any participation in its drafting?

“Lansing Ag Days” at the town hall included antique tractors, a family sing-a-long, and a pie judging contest — deliberately presenting a mid-century vision of farming that is a lifetime away from the realities of industrial farming in Lansing today.

The Lansing Comp Plan deliberately ignores the massive negative impact that CAFOs and modern “farming practices” are having on Tompkins Count:

• During the summer of 2016, a retired Cayuga County farmer told me that his tenant was trucking 100,000 gallons of water a day from Cayuga Lake to supplement the dairy farm’s wells [the average unrestricted water use for a family of four is 320 to 400 gallons a day]: with this kind of profligate water usage; it easy to see how modern CAFOs threaten whole aquifers, and not just the wells of neighbors.

• Millions of gallons of liquid manure [a fermented mixture of urine, manure, antibiotics, heavy metals like copper sulfate, bacteria, and antibiotic resistant pathogens] are stored in leak-prone, under regulated containment ponds on the slopes of Cayuga Lake tributaries like Salmon Creek.

• Cayuga Lake is already threatened as a source of drinking water according to the DEC, and it’s getting worse. [According to government studies: Farming activities contribute more than four times the pollution of every other source combined.]

• Famer’s drain fields with underground pipes; greatly increasing the speed and quantity of stormwater runoff, and the erosion of fields without cover plants is pervasive. [A county engineer told me that farm fields that used to take hours to drain; now take minutes: filling and overflowing the roadside ditches that empty into streams and the lake with an opaque brown liquid. The County’s solution? Dig bigger ditches.]

• While clamping down on wood heating [an essential source of warmth for many poor rural families] the Comp Plan ignores agricultural open burning exemptions that allow farms to burn as much “agricultural waste” as they want, whenever they want. [This includes but is not limited to vines, trees and branches from orchards, leaves and stubble, paper feed bags, wood shavings used for livestock bedding, bailing twine, and other non-plastic materials.] The dense smoke plumes from the inefficient burning of house-size piles of agricultural waste can be seen 20 miles away.

• Agricultural laws override our wetlands protection and exempt farmers in “grazing and watering livestock, making reasonable use of water resources, harvesting natural products of the wetlands, selectively cutting timber, draining land or wetlands for growing agricultural products and otherwise engaging in the use of wetlands or other land for growing agricultural products…” Wetlands and their biodiversity are disappearing: replaced by the spreading monoculture landscape of industrial farming.

• Not only is agriculture exempted from most air, water and land pollution control measures, but compliance with much of the rest is “voluntary,” and the regulations in place are deliberately ineffective measures that favor Agribusiness profits above the welfare of the community.

“Protecting” Agriculture

Far from being the victims of current planning policies and rural “neighbors”; farming is the most privileged and exempted business in New York State. And while other rural residents are in a month-to-month struggle to hang onto the homes their family has lived in for generations, Lansing’s farmers are looking forward to cutting a deal that will secure their farms [and all the Lansing Ag Zone] for themselves, their children and the future.

• When one renting landowner was able to lease a few acres of land for a solar array [at a much higher rate than farmers will pay], the response from farmers and the Comp Plan was immediate: “Additionally, while the development of more renewable energy in the Town is certainly encouraged (see Sustainability: Energy and Climate Change), it is believed that the development of “solar farms” at the expense of prime agricultural land would be a misuse of a valuable resource.” Showing that, while Lansing’s town government and its planners routinely ignore public citizen participation; they are sensitive to the welfare of rich and important private interests. The County’s rural policies insure that renting landowners, who rent nearly half of the land being farmed in Lansing, bear the brunt of high taxes and land assessments: forcing many to sell their land for “chump change” or lose money every year. And the biggest farms get bigger, and richer.

The Lansing Ag Plan never says it will protect existing farms or small farms.

Not even the state Dept. of Agriculture believes in this policy — NYS Agriculture and Markets law talks about a “competitive” industry and repeatedly uses the phrase “viable agriculture.” And since the largest farms have the economy of scale, the profitability and the money to put smaller farms out of business, and since their only limit to growth is the availability of land, they have both the ability and incentive to do so, and that is what they are doing.

The policies of the Lansing Ag Plan will only accelerate this process. By rejecting the local rural community and siding with powerful Ag interests, these small farms have lost the only long term support they have.

The idyllic agricultural community; so confidently set down in Lansing’s Ag and Comp plans does not exist in this century. There are no towns where modern farming practices have protected the soil, environmental quality and natural resources – no communities where they have preserved the rural character and enhanced the quality of life of the town. There are no examples to be shown, because all the examples show just the opposite — polluted rivers and wells, sickened neighbors, struggling local economies, and unemployment. Poor rural families dominated by CAFOs: eroded landscapes of manure “lagoons” that are devoid of the farm animals whose shortened, antibiotic and hormone-filled lives are confined to a few square feet in a giant shed.

So at the end of the Lansing Agriculture and Farmland Protection Plan we are left with one important question:

“What sort of an agricultural community will we turn out to be?”

While there are no current examples of successes, the failures are really scary.

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This long article shows how important elite policy making is to the big players in the county. Even though I wrote and distributed a report detailing the inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and untruths in this “Cornell Cooperative Concoction”; it was never questioned by any local or county authority; in fact, they had a hand in promoting it.

On a number of occasions, after I had spoken out; one of these authorities would ask me [with that practiced look of puzzlement] “What is it you want?” Every time I would answer: “I want the Ag Plan writer’s discriminatory assertion that “nobody but farmers deserve to live here” retracted, and for rural residents to have meaningful participation in planning the future of their own community.” Every time; there was no reply — only silence.

Many rural residents are afraid to speak out for fear of reprisals. Some are certain my herbicide spraying was payback for my unwelcome activism.

When elite policy making flows down to the rural poor; it plays hardball.

The old “Stewards of the Land” (we make the world better) wheeze has been replaced by the darker “We Feed the World” (you need us to live) threat; but when the Ag Plan was being written; there was still a little shine left on it.

The “cows in a field with red barn” photos and Ag Days “Dairy Queen and her Court” stuff is for the incomers who wouldn’t know hydrogen sulfide from hydrogen peroxide; and see rural poverty as a quaint roadside view from their speeding BMW.

Local, county, and state authorities parrot sugary drivel like a visitor’s brochure; while media outlets regurgitate handouts. Are these Agribusinesses that important; or are we that unimportant? Both.

The little farms and traditional farming families were just the patsy “poster children” for the big CAFOs. Farming is an occupation that speaks “corporate” these days.

Even large farms in Lansing with the latest farming practices are being pressured to sell to the biggest dairy farm in the state.

A parting concern: CAFOs are an ideal environment for breeding a pandemic. Money not only talks; it seals lips.

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – “The Death of Meaningful Public Participation”

THE DEATH OF MEANINGFUL PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Today’s rural residents have no place in Tompkins County’s future.

This statement is based on more than two years of research and review, questions and public meetings concerning the most recent Agriculture and Comprehensive Plans of Lansing and Tompkins County, NY.

The amount of evidence that supports this conclusion is so great, that even in outline, it covers many pages. In this, and in following articles, I will present some of the evidence and research that support this viewpoint. A body of evidence that is still awaiting public review and discussion — and has so far been successfully suppressed by the interests that drafted these plans.

The Death of Public Participation in Tompkins County

From its very beginning, the Lansing Ag Plan deliberately excluded any meaningful participation by Lansing’s rural families [who comprise 95% of the proposed “Ag Zone” residents; and are the poorest, least represented and most economically depressed segment of the town’s population.]

The Lansing Ag Plan, although it is funded by the state, shaped by rich agribusinesses and controlled by Cornell through their powerful and federally connected Cooperative Extension, is always described as “local.”

The parties involved were so confident they were “untouchable” that they did not even bother to cover their tracks; in what amounts to a privatization of public policy.

The EPA’s “Public Participation Guide” states: “Public participation affords stakeholders (those that have an interest or stake in an issue, such as individuals, interest groups, communities) the opportunity to influence decisions that affect their lives.”

The county’s rural families have never been included as stakeholders in any planning decision; and are considered an obstruction by those who covet their land.

A Brief History

In response to my email expressing concerns with Lansing’s Proposed Agriculture and Farmland Protection Plan and stating “This Summary gives the overall feeling that nobody else lives [or deserves to live] in North Lansing but farmers.” Cornell’s M***** R*** lead writer of the plan; inserted the phrase “You are right.”

I have reported this many times in communications with the people involved in Lansing Ag Plan’s formulation and approval, state and local politicians, boards and planners, and of course Cornell Cooperative Extension, and have never received even one response that repudiated or expressed any fault with this discriminatory policy statement.

Following M***** R***’s disclosure, and in light of the questionable and biased nature of the proposed Ag Plan, I sent a letter to Cornell Cooperative Extension [CCE] in December of 2015, along with a Title VI Environmental Justice form detailing seven major categories of complaint, including deceptive and false plan information, ignoring mandates for meaningful participation, incidents of CCE bias, and negative impacts of the plan on the rural community. This resulted in a meeting with CCE County Director K****** S********. The only outcome of this meeting, however, was his decision that further study of the Lansing Ag Plan was needed — there was no follow up to this meeting, and all subsequent attempts at communication went unacknowledged.

I then took all the previous information and sent it to the office of the state CCE Director C********** W*******, along with quotes from the CCE website declaring that their programs “build the capacity of New York State communities to engage in and direct their own futures.” The letter I received in response admitted no accountability or wrongdoing in their actions, and placed all responsibility solely on the Town of Lansing.

Similarly, Senator N******** responded that he did not have “authority or jurisdiction” and that the Ag Plan “falls under the control of a local municipal government,” and Senator G**********’s office agreed that it fell “under the jurisdiction of your local town government” and returned my correspondence.

In addition to the above, I have not been able to find one lawyer, or Tompkins County or New York State department, not one Cornell or Ithaca College professor, administrator or student activist group willing to help in this matter — even to the extent of writing a letter of protest. And at Ithaca College, the home of rural activist Janet Fitchen’s famous studies on rural poverty, a current professor wrote back excusing himself with “Janet worked in a simpler time.“

Local Lockstep

Local Lansing government and town officials, moving in lockstep with CCE, county and state agencies and politicians, have never once responded to questions about the lack of representation for the rural families living the Ag Plan area, or to the negative impact this plan would have on these families — and not one of the letters or emails sent to them has ever been acknowledged.

The Ag Plan’s “public meeting” was announced with minimum publicity, even though Town Board members knew that few rural families received the newspapers that posted the notices, and most rural residents did not have computers to track meetings, or even know how to use them.

The publicly staged Ag Plan meeting was no more than a small part of an ordinary Town Board meeting. Attendees could ask no questions, and were told that it was only as a favor they would be allowed to speak at all. Those wishing to speak were given two minutes each; after which the Town Board immediately approved the Lansing Ag Plan without comment or discussion.

Total public meeting time: 15 minutes.

Total respect for Lansing’s rural families: 0.

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By the time readers of the book have gotten a few pages into Part 2; the posters, games, and “humorous” pieces in Part 1 will be viewed in a different light.

These are no “A 2-page form to register a trailer!” type stories, but “The farm polluted our well, and I can’t afford to fix it or buy bottled water for our family!” situations.

And how do government agencies help them out?

They tell them to mix bottled water and the polluted well water together to be able to afford it. It may be safe to drink [if you’re not too old, or too young, and don’t have medical conditions.]

Or:

Shut down the well for safety; so they have no water at all.

In New York City: this would be outrageous! In rural New York: it’s not even a story.

Part 8d – Integrity and Transparency in Government – Ag Assessment Map

Large interests play a big part in Tompkins County policy making. In fact, they’re the only interests that matter.

The “2018 Town of Lansing, NY – Comprehensive Plan” is a 312 page concoction designed to serve these interests.

And the Town of Lansing, N.Y. – Agricultural Property map is just one example of the deliberate misrepresentations that riddle this document.

The inquiry into this map, and its final disposition, is only the introduction to a multi-part examination of both the Town of Lansing’s and Tompkins County’s Comprehensive plans.

What is planned for the future of our community, and who made those decisions?

It’s all playing out in Cornithaca County.

As mentioned in the introduction to this series:

In each blog, I will focus on an actual incident or issue that raises questions about the conduct of those who have been entrusted with the welfare of the public at large.

The questions and facts of the case will be included in a letter sent to the persons responsible for regulatory oversight, as well as to our elected representatives. The body of the letter will be disclosed in each blog, and the results of these letters and the names of recipients will be posted as updates.

At the end of the series, I will summarize the findings as to whether the response of Tompkins County public officials has been consistent with their duty to the public at large.

Below is the body of the email:

I am writing you to request that you remove from all documents and files, the County map titled Town of Lansing, N.Y. – Agricultural Property with a legend purporting to display land receiving Agricultural Exemptions in the Town of Lansing for the year 2016.

This Tompkins County map misrepresents the acreage receiving Agricultural Exemptions in the following ways:

• This map misrepresents existing facts: i.e. actual acreage receiving Agricultural Exemptions in 2016.

• The Tompkins County Assessment Department admitted that they knowingly supplied a map misrepresenting the actual acreage receiving Agricultural Exemptions: “The intention of the map is to show the parcels that receive an agricultural exemption – it is not intended to show how much of each parcel receives an exemption.” This is clearly not the representation of the map. [As an example: Contrary to the 100% shown on the map, only 40% of my brother’s [Joel Baird’s] tax parcel receives an Agricultural Assessment.]

• This map was used to support preferential agricultural policies, including the creation of an Agricultural Zone, to the exclusion and detriment of the existing rural community — an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage.

A knowingly inaccurate map should neither have been created nor have been offered for inclusion in a legal document that is described in NY Town Law as follows: “Among the most important powers and duties granted by the legislature to a town government is the authority and responsibility to undertake town comprehensive planning.”

Additionally, while this map is also offered as a proof of intent by the Town of Lansing for continued agricultural land use, a different Lansing Comp Plan map shows that the Town has zoned most of the Agricultural Exemption parcels east and south of 34B and Peruville roads for residential and commercial development.

Just changing the legend and/or name of the map would only cover up the situation and retain any advantages that the misrepresentation has given to the parties involved.

I request the Tompkins County Legislature to remove this map from its files and any documents wherein it has been used, and to correct as much as possible the damage its use has caused.

Part 6 – Sewers of the Land

The influence of rich and powerful interests in maintaining the status quo in the face of an ever increasing destruction of the environment, is nowhere better seen than in Tompkins County’s handling of agricultural pollution.

The Tompkins County Comprehensive Plan’s representation of environmental issues and policies is a careful dance around the facts — Facts that paint a very different picture of the sources of pollution in the county, and expose an elitist policy making agenda.

Part 6 – Sewers of the Land

Continue reading Part 6 – Sewers of the Land

Part 2 – Debunking the Lansing Ag Plan

The three greatest factors in the approval of the Lansing Agriculture and Farmland Protection Plan are:

The plan was never critically examined or allowed to be publicly questioned.
Lansing’s rural families were unrepresented by any state, local or county agency or government representative, and prevented from having any meaningful participation in the plan themselves.
The lives and welfare of rural families living in the affected area of Lansing are of no importance whatsoever to the people who created and support this plan.

Part 2 – Debunking the Lansing Ag Plan

Continue reading Part 2 – Debunking the Lansing Ag Plan

Part 1 – The Death of Meaningful Public Participation

Today’s rural residents have no place in Tompkins County’s future.

This statement is based on more than two years of research and review, questions and public meetings concerning the most recent Agriculture and Comprehensive Plans of Lansing and Tompkins County, NY.

Part 1 – Death of Meaningful Public Participation

Continue reading Part 1 – The Death of Meaningful Public Participation