Deal Road dealt funding delay

      In August of 2008, state senator Dean Skelos secured a $250,000 grant for the Village of Island Park to use on Deal Road repairs. The money would have given the village the ability to repave all of the damaged road, which runs about 1,000 feet, and also fix flooding issues on the road. The village wanted to expand the project to include Suffolk Road where it meets Deal Road and damaged curbs and sidewalks on Deal Road, so it requested additional money from the senator to increase the scope of the project. In November the village received an additional $125,000.
      However, the village has recently found out that the additional $125,000 secured by Skelos is being held by the state Department of Transportation, the department that issues the funding, pending an additional review of the project.
      "As a result [of the financial situation], the governor has added an additional layer of scrutiny on all of these capital projects," said Scott Reif, a spokesperson for Skelos, "so the additional $125,000 will still have to be signed off on by the budget director and the state operations director."
      The village will still receive the initial grant of $250,000, which will be enough to fund the work to repair the road and fix the flooding problem, which was the main goal of the project. But without the $125,000, which the village could still possibly receive, the project will not be able to repair curbs or sidewalks or any of Suffolk Road.
      According to Island Park Mayor Jim Ruzicka, the Department of Transportation needed a reason why they should receive the additional funds. Ruzicka wrote that Deal Road was a school road with a serious flooding issue.
      Dr. Edward Price, superintendent of schools for Island Park, was sympathetic to the village's problem. "Being a school district, all of us understand the significance of cutbacks," Price said. "They do not allow you to proceed in the way you wanted to."
      Deal Road is the road busses use to drop students off at the Hegarty School. When the road floods, the busses can't drop the kids off there, and have to do it on Radcliffe Road, causing traffic problems. Repairing the flooding is Price's main concern for the Deal Road project. In fact, he said he wouldn't mind if the potholes stayed.
      "Actually, people have to drive very slowly down there," Price said. Because the road is so rutted, cars drive slowly down the street, making it unintentionally safer for the school children.
      "It's like nature's speed bumps," he added.
      According to Ruzicka, the village has reached out to Skelos, as well as Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg, to see if they could "inject something into it with their clout."
      Weisenberg said that, since the money came out of the senate, there was really nothing he could do to help. "The secret to success is," he said, "when you get your funding, you spend it."
      When it gets near the time for the state to approve its budget, Weisenberg says that it gets harder and harder to secure funding for projects. "This is the mentality up here [in Albany] prior to a budget," he said, "that anything they get their hands on, they're holding."
      For now, there is nothing more the village can do. Their appeal for the additional funding has to be reviewed, and a decision might still be made before work begins in April. The Deal Road portion of the project will most likely begin during the school's break in April, while the other repairs will not be carried out unless the additional funding can be secured.
      "All we can do is plead with them," Ruzicka said. "Beg and whatever else."

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