Town of Rotterdam urged to fix road

PHOTOGRAPHER: Marc Schultz

Traffic passes near a pothole in the Masullo Estates area of Rotterdam on Thursday afternoon.

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Mike Budka decided to give the Town Board members a little more than a piece of his mind this week.

The East Lucille Lane resident gave them a plastic bag, filled with what he described as pieces from his badly deteriorated street.

“That is rubble from East Lucille Lane,” he explained to the board members during Wednesday’s meeting. “There’s an actual layer over top of it.”

Sure enough, the surface of East Lucille Lane has deteriorated to a point that the road no longer appears paved. Traffic passing over the Masullo Estates road kicked up dust Thursday evening.

About a dozen residents from the development called on the board to restart efforts to repair the town road before it deteriorates further. Some pointed to the marked breakdown of East Lucille, one of the few streets that had remained mostly free of the potholes marring other areas of the development.

“We’re looking at a road that isn’t a road anymore,” said East Lucille resident Michael O’Connor. “At least it’s not a road like you see anywhere else in town.”

West Lucille Lane resident Dave Banker agreed. He urged board members to take corrective action soon, rather than allow another construction season to pass.

“I know you guys have spent thousands on studies, but we have to move forward,” he said. “At some point, we have to stop studying and start doing some work.” The area for years has faced problems of a high water table, considered responsible for unstable roads as well as chronically wet basements.

Board members set a public hearing for 7 p.m. April 23 in Town Hall to discuss a dry sewer line as part of a $1.35 million reconstruction project. The sewer line would be paid for by residents and is projected to eventually hook into a larger main planned for the proposed 261-unit Helderberg Meadows development.

In November, board members approved a new $40,500 study to take into account a property located at the end of East Lucille Lane and bordering the proposed 261-unit Helderberg Meadows development. Project engineers have suggested building a drain from East Lucille Lane to a pond, which would then gradually empty into a lower-lying storm water stream serving Helderberg Meadows.

Supervisor Steve Tommasone said the public hearing will give Masullo residents all the details about the project scope and allow them to voice their opinions. He said the board will then decide between scrapping the sewer project or sending it to a referendum vote for later in the spring.

“We want to hear from the residents in the neighborhood,” he said. “We are going to be committed to working on the drainage system and the roads in the interim.”

But Zbigniew Dzimiera, a Masullo Parkway resident living at the edge of East Lucille Lane, remained skeptical. He watched a cloud of dust rise from the street as a truck drove by Thursday; he pointed to the hoses pumping water from the development’s homes into the road.

“They say they’re going to do it, but then they do nothing,” he said.