About those barriers on the Bronx River Parkway
-
- September
- 11
The purchase of “Emergency Traffic Diversion Equipment” isn’t something that, on its surface, would seem likely to generate much debate among government officials.
But at yesterday’s otherwise-uneventful meeting of Westchester’s Board of Legislators, that’s just what happened. And the tone, at times partisan, seemed to indicate an underlying frustration that exists among some lawmakers and the administration of County Executive Andrew Spano.
It began when Minoroty Leader George Oros, R-Cortlandt, suggested that the $2.65 million bond issue be sent back to the Budget Committee for further work. He suggested that the county didn’t need to spend so much money when old fashioned saw horses and traffic cones had worked in the past.
That resulted in a chiding from Budget Committee Chairman Michael Kaplowitz, who argued that the measure was needed to purchase new, moveable barriers for the Bronx River Parkway to keep drivers off the road when it floods. He suggested that by opposing the measure, Oros and the other minority caucus members who opposed the measure were voting against public safety.
Oros and other members of the minority, including Legislator Suzanne Swanson, took issue with Kaplowitz’s comments, saying they were acting in the best interests of the county.
Then Legislator Thomas Abinanti, a Greenburgh Democrat, rose to say he too had “grave concerns” about the Spano administration’s plans but would vote for them anyway ecause he was concerned about being branded anti-public safety by Spano.
Then today, Deputy County Executive Larry Schwartz, when asked about the debate in the legislature, did exactly what Abinanti and the GOP lawmakers had feared.
“I think their answers and their attitude were anti-public safety,” Schwartz said about Oros and the other three lawmakers who opposed the measure. “They seemed less concerned with protecting the residents of Westchester County than scoring political points.”
Oros shrugged off Schwartz’s comments.
“I expect that of Larry Schwartz,” Oros said. “That’s the way he is. Instead of addressing the facts, he would rather call you a name.”
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 6:38 pm by Glenn Blain.
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Sawhorses and cones are certainly a lot cheaper, but how long does it take to round up the highway crew, and send them out to set up the cones? Remember that they need to get paid, maybe at the overtime rate. On the other hand, would the high tech barrier work any better than cones? Could it be actuated remotely, or would you still have to dispatch someone (who also needs to get paid) to the location to turn it on? One benefit to a remotely actuated gate would be that the highway crew wouldn’t have to take time from, say, clearing clogged storm sewers, to deploy the barrier.
Yes, the public deserves to be safe. The public also deserves to have their tax dollars spent wisely. Attempting to stifle debate about spending responsibly by impugning the motives of those who are not ready to rubberstamp every proposal sent their way is wrong.
This fancy gate may be a great thing. However, if it gains the public no tangible benefit over the current way of closing the road, then questions NEED to be asked before committing taxpayer dollars to pay for it. If it’s so great, tell us why.
Glenn,
You may want to mark your issues index. When the time comes to buy those million dollar barriers who will be the manufacturer? Will it be part of the Spano administration’s China connection? Will a big Democratic contributor be enmeshed in the process as was the Spano plan for 450 Saw Mill River Road?
It seems to me that le Schwartz doth throw the mud quickly so that you won’t look behind the curtain. In short, cherchez la loot.
Cheers/ww
How about spending the $2.6M on something like, I don’t know, maybe- FLOOD PREVENTION!
This new scheme is akin to closing the GATE after the horse is out of the barn!
Mr. Kaplowitz, correct public safety would be utilizing MY MONEY on storm water aleviation, better drainage, flood barriers, etc, not stupid state of the art barriers that will fail when CONED has an outage. Oh yeah, did you forget about all those outages during the storms?
How will the gates close then? Guess we would have to send workers out to use the saw horses that cost how much each?
And even if the County spent money on temporary variable signs, when there was a workable storm water solution at least they could be reused throughout the County for other purposes.
This scheme is just an outright waste of money.
And the SMART legislators are the ones who are thinking about the costs vs benefits and long term solutions rather than rubber stamping ineffectual bandaids.
But I am only the TAX PAYER. What would I know?
Are kidding me? This is just another example of Andy Spano and the Democrats growing the county government to expand their political machine. Lola hit the issue on the nose, the $2.65 million bond should be used for flooding control. Here is the cold hard reality, over the last decade as Democrats took control of county government and many local governments, they have jumped in bed with all the major developers and have allowed them to pave over most of Southern Westchester and add so much more concrete and so many more people and so much more traffic, that flooding has reached the crisis level. It is incredible that Democrats act like the party of the poor and are now in bed with every developer. Look at New Rochelle, where Cappelli has practically taken over the downtown, overides all local zoning laws, and builds whatever he wants despite objections from residents. Cappelli is in charge of the development in New Rochelle, not the elected officials, while all the Democrats on the City Council just let him get away with it.
After I read the article in the paper, I see that the barriers are not automatic, and need to be deployed manually. From the description, they sound like the kinds of temporary fences they use at construction sites, that orange mesh stuff. True, there are always idiots who move cones and sawhorses out of the way and drive into a flood, but what’s to stop them from doing that with this setup?
Maybe they should use the money to dredge silted-up parts of the Bronx River, so that it can handle higher water volumes, and do more proactive cleaning of the storm sewers.
Just a thought…