With the weather growing colder, the Greenport village board held a special meeting on Tuesday to approve a paving project so that work can begin as soon as possible.
On Tuesday, the board met in Village Hall to approve the paving project, which will cover Moores Lane, and a stretch of Main Street from Bridge Street to First Street.
The board passed a resolution approving a budget amendment up to $120,000 for a paving project contract utilizing Suffolk County and Southold Town bid prices to Corazzini Asphalt, Inc..
Mayor David Nyce said initially, the village had hoped to include a section of the village road in a current New York State Route 25 repaving project.
But the full stretch, from the blinking light by the Coronet up to Route 48 has not yet been approved and included in the state project, and Nyce said the goal was to pave what needed work most badly before winter. The project would encompass the “bare minimum”, and will not prove as as intensive as the state project. Work is expected to be completed in approximately one day, the mayor said, and is weather dependent.
Last month, according to Eileen Peters, spokesperson for the New York State Department of Transportation, the NYSDOT met with officials from the Village of Greenport and the Town of Southold to address the issue.
“This segment between Front Street and County Road 48 was not included in the New York State Route 25/Main Road micro surfacing repaving project because it is not under NYSDOT’s jurisdiction,” she said. “Both the Town of Southold and the Village of Greenport have maintained their respective jurisdictions of this roadway for many years. NYSDOT encouraged the town to apply for local funding to repave this roadway.”
Nyce said one solution might be to ultimately turn the stretch of road over to the state.
The $6.9 million NYSDOT paving project, which kicked off in June, will repave 14 miles of New York State Route 25/Main Road between Tuckers Lane and the end of Route 25 in Orient.
At last month’s village board meeting, a resident asked the board about whether or not the .75 mile section of road along Main Street, from the blinking light in front of the Coronet on Front Street and ending at Knapp Place, would be excluded from the repaving project.
Deputy Supervisor George Hubbard said the three quarters of a mile, as it stands, would be excluded.
When residents asked if the board thought that was “okay,” Hubbard responded, “No, that’s not okay.” Hubbard said he’d spoken to New York State Senator Ken LaValle, who said he’d spoken to a state engineer and been told that the area, which includes seven blocks located in the village and two in Southold Town, was “not in the plan”. LaValle, Hubbard said, asked the village to determine the cost of what it would take to add that section of roadway to the plan.
Village Administrator Paul Pallas tallied a projected cost and sent it to LaValle’s office, but no resolution was reached.
Resident John Saladino asked, if the NYSDOT decided not to allow for the paving, if the village could “piggyback” on the state’s contract with Posillico Civil, Inc. of Farmingdale, to get the work done.
Hubbard said he’d also reach out to New York State Assemblyman Anthony Palumbo and said he’d suggested offering Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement, of CHIPS, monies to the tune of $43,000 from the village as a show of “good faith, in helping with the cost.”
