Southeast Highway Superintendent to Decide on Maple Road Paving
By Neal Rentz
It will be up to Highway Superintendent Michael Bruen if a portion of Maple Road will be paved, Southeast Supervisor Tony Hay said at an April 23 town board meeting.
The question of whether to pave a half- mile portion of the unpaved road has divided residents and continued to do so at last week’s meeting.
The decision of whether or not to pave part of the road is “not up to the town board,” Hay said.
It will take Bruen, who did not attend the meeting, at least two month to provide a report to the town board on what he thinks should be done with the street Hay said. If the highway superintendent decides to go forward with paving, the town board would need to vote on providing additional funding for the project if it would cost more than what is in the department’s budget, Hay said.
Hay asked residents to send an e-mail to the town to be informed when the highway superintendent will appear before the town board.
Enoch Crosby Road resident Mike Durante said he and his neighbors were upset with what Hay said because he thought at the previous town board meeting in which paving was discussed, the town board had agreed to pave a portion of Maple Road. “We were pretty happy when we left” the pervious meeting, he said.
There are large rocks on his road that are potentially damaging to his and other vehicles,Durantesaid.Thetownneedsto “come up with a solution,” he said.
Durante suggested that residents of the Maple Road area be allowed to vote on a referendum on whether to repave part of the road. But Town Attorney Willis Stephens Jr. said if there was a referendum, “the entire town” would vote on the issue.
One of the residents opposed to paving a part of the road was David Cuomo. “Pave the end of the north road and it will become a raceway,” he said.
Cuomo said his car has been able to ride the north end of Maple Road without problems and it should remain unpaved.
Resident Michael Cunningham said both sides of Maple Road should remain unpaved. The road is “not a disaster,” he said.
