The following letter was published in this week’s issue of the Gazette.
To the Editor:
Did you miss it? Late last Monday night, at almost the very end of the Village Board meeting, the Village Manager announced that based on the bids recently received for the Croton Point Avenue project, the village will now have to borrow $3 million dollars to complete the project. For those who have been following the progress of this misguided project from its inception, that is fully ten times the original estimated cost to the village, and that’s for only the scaled-back version of the project that the board announced earlier this year.
“The taxpayers of this village can only hope that some concern for their welfare will guide the decision making of this board, and that a decade’s worth of empty promises to their constituents does not force the Croton Dems to make a decision that prioritizes their party over the good of the community.”
And while I’m certain that proponents of the project will point out that the original estimate was made ten years ago, which is true, the project’s proponents would also have to admit that less than two weeks ago, the village manager estimated that the village would need to borrow $1.9 million to complete the project—which today seems like a bargain at only a little more than six times the original estimate.
This project, which proposes to narrow the driving lanes on Croton Point Avenue to the New York State minimum in order to construct bike lanes and a sidewalk designed to incentivize pedestrians to cross three separate highway entrances and exits on the south side of the street, and install three additional stop lights between Riverside Avenue and the train station, was flawed from the beginning. Admitting that fact now will literally save the taxpayers of this village millions of dollars. Let’s face it—with this price tag, this project has jumped the shark.
The taxpayers of this village can only hope that some concern for their welfare will guide the decision making of this board, and that a decade’s worth of empty promises to their constituents does not force the Croton Dems to make a decision that prioritizes their party over the good of the community.
Roseann Schuyler