'Crisis' prompts funds for Amityville road repairs
Amityville trustees on Monday night approved spending as much as $20,000 for emergency road repairs that are to start immediately.
“I think we have a crisis here, by no fault of our public works department,” said Trustee Nick LaLota. He estimated there are now 200 potholes on village roads caused by the harsh winter.
Workers from Rosemar Construction Corp., an East Moriches-based paving company already in contract with Babylon Town for its road reconstruction program, will augment the efforts of crew from the village public works department.
The village crew has only one “hot box” asphalt-patching truck , and work has been hampered because some asphalt repairs can’t be done in cold or wet weather, LaLota said.
The 5-0 approval came despite reluctance from Trustee Kevin Smith, who argued the situation wasn’t bad enough to merit emergency spending. “We’re spending money we don’t need to spend,” he said.
The cost of repairs will be balanced by savings achieved when Mayor James Wandell replaced his full-time assistant with a part-time worker, LaLota said.
LaLota said Amityville would use a Babylon town contract with the company that set a rate of $12 per square foot for the pothole repair work.
Trustee Dennis Siry, the village board’s liaison to the public works department, noted in his report to the board that 4.5 tons of temporary road patch has already washed away.
Amityville’s potholes have claimed at least one prominent victim: Wandell, who said he’d recently lost a tire to one.