Construction group lobbies to bring work to LI

CONSTRUCTION

One of the industries hit hardest on Long Island by this wrenching recession is construction, where unemployment is now at about 35 percent, and some 11,100 jobs have been lost in the last year alone.

The state of the industry on the Island was one of the reasons Marc Herbst found himself in Albany Monday, testifying before a joint budget committee in hopes of securing about $220 million in state infrastructure funding this year for Nassau and Suffolk counties.

Herbst is no stranger to the state capital. He was a state assemblyman from 1994 to 2002 and was once the ranking Republican on the Assembly energy committee. But Herbst was in Albany in his capacity as executive director of the Long Island Contractors Association, an 87- year-old organization now representing about 150 contractors.

"We're asking that [state infrastructure funding] be maintained or increased and that Long Island get its fair share," Herbst said just before testifying before the committee.

The Island, Herbst said, was allocated about $225 million by the State Legislature last year, but Gov. David A. Patersonsliced the allocation in half, citing budget shortages.

But the Island's infrastructure problems are significant, Herbst said.

As just one example, Herbst said, the Ellison Avenue Bridge in Westbury is rated by the federal Highway Administration to be in nearly as bad a shape as the Champlain Bridge in Vermont, which was demolished in December after being declared unsafe. Herbst said disrepair on the Ellison Avenue Bridge causes debris to fall down onto the Long Island Rail Road tracks below.

Herbst, who was hired in 2006 by the then-moribund contractors association, is largely credited with reviving it. There were only 92 members when he took over. He found an archaic bookkeeping system - no Web site - and said little was offered to members in the way of programs. All that has changed, he said. But the larger job, Herbst said, is squeezing money out of the state for much needed infrastructure repairs on the Island.

How? "We've got to remind them [the legislature and the governor] that the economy is bad and that if you look at the history of construction, it has always been the way we've gotten out of recessions and depressions," Herbst said, citing the Works Project Administration during Franklin Roose-velt's presidency. "Whenever there was poor economic times, investing in infrastructure created jobs," Herbst said.

Construction jobs in the works

New York State's five-year capital plan includes proposals for some projects on Long Island: