LETTER: Who are the Lysander town councilors really representing?

To the editor:

As someone who either attended or listened to every Lysander Town Board meeting since the start of the year, I heard many intelligent and passionate arguments against the Collington Pointe East project. These 89 new homes will affect many of our Lysander residents either directly (e.g., more traffic or crowded schools) or indirectly via increased town resources (aka taxes) going to maintain the newly acquired land associated with the property. The developer’s proposal was considered under the town’s Incentive Zoning Law, which allows the builder greater density in exchange for approved amenities that benefit the entire town. The Collington Pointe proposal was rejected by the Onondaga County Planning Board, in part because the amenities lacked supporting information and were subsequently found to be illegal. As I sat in the meetings, I felt a great sense of pride hearing the clear messages, backed with evidence, articulated by our Lysander residents. Therefore, when the first plan was tabled, it seemed to me that it was dead in the water. Clearly, it couldn’t go anywhere. The people of Lysander had made their voices heard.

Or had they? A new plan was hastily introduced on April 6. When, where and with whom was this new plan negotiated? Was this negotiation open to the public, as required by law? Our residents scrambled to look over the new plan that was only posted a few days before the next board meeting, and many residents came to the meeting and spoke up, again. We all noticed that not too much was changed in the new plan, or so we thought. A reduction of homes to be built from 120 to 89, a change announced to “appease” the concerned residents, didn’t seem like it would really make that big of a difference. Other changes to the proposal were significant enough that the process for approval should have been restarted.

And then, just like that, the same night the public first had a chance to ask questions about the new proposal, Supervisor Saraceni stated that the public hearing was closed. The public barely had a chance to read over the documents but their comments would no longer be officially accepted. The board had 60 days from the time the public hearing was closed to render a decision. Because this plan was already rejected by the county planning board, the town board needed a super majority (four of the five councilors) to get the proposal through. At the very next board meeting, however, on April 20, our elected Lysander Town Board, Supervisor Joe Saraceni and councilors Bob Geraci, Bob Ellis, Peter Moore and Roman Diamond, voted unanimously to approve the new Collington Pointe development.

After not one Lysander resident publicly supported the plan, how did this happen? I’m left with one question: who are the Lysander Town Councilors really representing? It clearly isn’t the residents of Lysander who elected them to office and who spoke against this development again and again.