JUNE 11, 2007

CHANGE, REFORM: REAL POLICIES OR ELECTION BUZZWORDS?

The October storm caught us off guard. We addressed the immediate concerns quite efficiently, but so far, the spring clean up has been a disaster. Initially in October, we sent up a storm center run by Erie County, and it became obvious that a regional approach to this disaster worked.

Not all the areas in our county suffered the same degree of damage. The problem we are now experiencing in our town is solving how we can clean up this mess efficiently, effectively and with the least amount of cost to our citizens. We received a helping hand from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) but they were quick to close their pocketbooks and now they are tossing us back into a system where a municipality such as Cheektowaga has to fend for itself. What we are left with are multiple levels of government going back and forth bickering as to whose obligation it is to clean up the leftover mess from the October storm.

We have over 1,100 miles of roads in Erie County that are designated as county roads. Many of the roads are solely within towns, while others spill into village and other town governments. I think the time is right for the legislature to revisit this whole system of county roads. It would seem to me that we should have a regional debris-management system – not just for emergencies, but for all maintenance and debris management. All roads in Erie County should be under the management of one enhanced system. That's how they do it in counties in Virginia, Georgia, the Carolinas and out west, including in Clark County, Nevada, which is the fastest growing county in America.

In Erie County, we have 3 cities, 25 towns and 16 villages - each with its own highway department. If we had one unified highway department with branch offices, local garages and local foremen - the way they do it in Virginia and some of these other fast-growing states – then we wouldn't have this problem of having to do a new inter-municipal agreement every time we had to fix a pot hole or pick up some storm debris.

Eight months have elapsed since the dreaded snowstorm and the lingering debris is posing a safety risk to our community. The citizens have done their due diligence and have hauled the debris to the curbside, but it's obstructing their view as they back out of their driveways. It's an accident waiting to happen. Government should provide a better vision than it does.

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