Lansing Town Board race heats up

Until September, what had seemed like a breezy re-election campaign for Lansing Town Board members Judy Drake and Joseph Wetmore has become a contested race between the two incumbents and residents John Duthie and Joe Lovejoy. 

Both newcomers to the race are mounting a write-in campaign spurred by the town board’s proposal, announced in September, to halt some construction projects in the town as Lansing officials prepare to overhaul the town’s zoning code — an endeavor that has been in the works for about seven years.

Duthie and Lovejoy have quickly mobilized and centered their campaign around two tenets: one, the town is increasingly becoming too expensive to live in and that is the town board’s fault; two, the moratorium has exposed town board members’ lack of transparency.

Their campaign has gained quick momentum online, garnering slightly more than 700 likes on Facebook and riding the wave of some residents’ discontent with the moratorium. 

Their campaign has also amassed almost $10,000, which includes thousands of their own money and that of their businesses, a $1,000 donation from a former Lansing politician and thousands more from a commercial property landlord and business owners who serve on some of the town’s volunteer boards, according to state campaign finance data.

Duthie manages his family’s businesses: United Storage and Duthie Paint Company. He returned to Lansing after a stint in professional golf in Florida. He is also a member of the town’s planning board.

“In just this short amount of time, I’ve seen the struggle that it is to do business in Lansing,” he said. “I have seen restrictions and anti-business policies, and the taxes are sky high.”

Duthie said that he has plans to build a 3,200-square-foot commercial building, which would have been put on hold for a year if the proposed moratorium had passed without a recent amendment suggested by Wetmore. Wetmore’s amendment increases the square footage in that section of the moratorium to 6,000. The town board will vote on the moratorium in November. 

“The thing you couple with the moratorium is, how did nobody tell me about it?” he said. “I’m on these committees, and I don’t know anything about it.  I’m also a business owner in Lansing. I didn’t know anything about it, so it stirred a lot of emotions. I was angry, disheartened, and felt like the town officials are untrustworthy and lack transparency.” 

Lovejoy, the owner of Plumb Level Square Construction, said transparency with the town board around the moratorium hasn’t been up to par. He added that rising tax rates have also been concerning. 

“There’s no end in sight,” Lovejoy said. “I’ve talked to families who have been here my whole life. They’re literally getting ready to sell their house because they can’t afford to live here.”

Drake said that she is running to continue her life in public service.

“I like giving back to our town,” she said.

Drake acknowledged that the tax levy, the amount of money the town collects in taxes, has gone up in recent years. She added that the tax rate, how much a homeowner is taxed, has gone up and down in recent years. Drake wants to be able to stabilize the budgeting process. 

“This is only our second budget, and kind of coming into some difficult budgeting situations, so it’s kind of hard to dig yourself out of a hole that somebody else created, which is where we’re at,” Drake said.

Similarly, Wetmore said that the town is getting back on track to more long-term, sustainable financial planning. The cost of goods, services and health insurance for the town have risen by 48% in the past five years, he said. The tax levy for the town has increased by 72% in the same amount of time, Wetmore added. 

Both Wetmore and Drake said that they have had to invest more to address the deficiencies and cuts made by previous administrations. 

“Additionally, staffing costs have risen by 42% during that same time due to necessary cost-of-living adjustments, retention raises to remain competitive and the addition of essential positions like a code enforcement officer,” Wetmore said. 

Wetmore said he wants to see through “important work that is already underway.” Some of that includes his work on the town’s comprehensive plan, a document created by town volunteers from 2015 to 2018 that is meant to steer Lansing into the future. Wetmore said he wants to continue working on zoning overhauls in his third term. 

The moratorium is meant to help overhaul the town’s zoning based on axioms and guidelines delineated in the comprehensive plan, some town board members, including Wetmore, have said. 

“I have a strong background in planning issues,” he said. “That experience gave me a deep understanding of how planning decisions shape the long-term character, growth and quality of life in our community.”