Admittedly, roads aren’t sexy. But, if you live in Erie County, you know potholes and you’ve learned to negotiate them like a NASCAR driver.

So as County highway crews race to patch these craters, we legislators search for the money to fix them.

Therein lies the problem. Erie County has no concrete plan (no pun intended) in place to sustain our road and bridge infrastructure. We are constantly operating in a crisis-management mode.

Several years ago, we had an extensive plan to maintain our infrastructure. But then came the Giambra fiscal crisis. Fuggettaboutit!

Money that was supposed to go to roads was inappropriately diverted to salaries and operating expenses. Today’s reality is that we would need to spend over $10 million a year for several years in order to revamp our infrastructure from its neglect. We supposedly don’t have the money. But we should.

The fact is that we have a dedicated road plan - one that generates the County over $10 million a year, but we aren’t using it appropriately.

Since early last year, I’ve been shaking facts and figures in the face of this Administration. The Mortgage Transfer Tax is an $11 million income that is supposed to be dedicated to roads. But less than $2 million of it is actually being applied to them.

They tell me it is “necessary and appropriate” to apply the money to salaries and operations, but I beg to differ. It’s nothing more than a shell game and I doubt it would stand an official audit by New York State.

In the meantime, the roads are crumbling and my office phone is ringing off the hook from concerned citizens.

The Consolidated Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS) is money from the State that reimburses the County for roadwork that has a 10 year life expectancy. We are entitled to $6.6 million this year. If we start the work today, we will get reimbursed within 2-3 months.

This is called “pay-as-we-go” financing, where we pay with money we have coming and then get reimbursed by the state. But for some unknown reason (yeah, sure), this Administration has decided it is smarter to borrow millions of dollars to do the work. Of course when you borrow money, someone has to be paid a lucrative fee.

After harping on this costly practice all last year, I put a Resolution in the 2007 budget demanding the Administration move to a pay-as-you-go method of financing CHIPS and the Administration finally agreed. Hallelujah… a win for the people!

And now with a new County Executive being elected this year, I call on all the candidates to address the deteriorating condition of our infrastructure. We need more than just lip service, because this is a public safety concern, AS WELL AS A FINANCING concern. This money must not be diverted to the General Fund.

I welcome your thoughts at 601-3030.

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