Smithtown officials squabble over road repairs

While Smithtown's Democratic highway superintendent and two Republican town board members squabble over the best way to pay for needed road repairs, the paving season could come to an end.

[WOODY from ST JAMES]

GIVE HIM HELL EDDIE!!!!!

[SHAMROCK]

Jim Dowling, where are you when we need you?

[WOODY from ST JAMES]

SHAMROCK wrote:

Jim Dowling, where are you when we need you?

While Mr Dowling had some small quirks....he was probably the best hwy. supt. we ever had. You ask, where is he????....He is enjoying retirement, after the people in this town did the dumbest thing I've seen in an election....They voted him out because they wanted a change.....welll they sure as $#!+ got it with the worst supt. we ever had with Mr. Donnelly....It took only 1 term to realize he was not the man for the job....Then we elected Mr. Lynch, who was a great supt. but....was also voted out by the dumb taxpayers of Smithtown.... Yea... He had a few quirks too, but got the job done when the chips were down....I personally liked him as a real caring man who represented our hwy. dept. with the taxpayer in mind, And with some of the best foremen, & supervisors this town has ever seen, they kept the union protected low work producing employees on the move. The average taxpayer in Smithtown must have a short memory, & not remember who is serving us well, & keep them in the next election.....someday they will learn!!!

[Manfred]

Jim Dowling was the best and no once since has come close. That aside, Dan Ryan has done a miserable job and the roads in this town are the worst I can ever remember them being.While the politicians **** on each other's legs, the roads are getting worse. On top of that, with rising oil prices, the longer we wait the more expensive it becomes. Get off you rear end Mr Ryan and get the job done and stop bitching about hiring more of your Kings Park buddies. As for Ed Weirheim, if he ran for the Highway job, I'ld vote for him in a heartbeat. He did an outstanding job with Parks. My only complaint with Ed is his affiliation with Vecchio, but hopefully Vecchio's time is coming to an end....with a perp walk in handcuffs. But that's another blog.

[Manfred]

p i s s is a bad word ("...policitians p i s s on each other's legs") but **** is OK? Go figure. Leave it to the jerks at Newsrag.

[Eric]

"Ryan said his staff has been cut to 150 positions from 200 during the previous administration, and overtime was taken out of this year's budget. Ryan said the $150,000 would be insufficient overtime for other services, such as brush and leaf pickups. Under the union contract, employees sweep and haul away road debris during paving."

Why the hell are the taxpayers paying these workers overtime for brush and leaf pickups? If it's something that needs to be done during the paving process, it's part of the overall job. If you're a teacher, you don't get paid overtime for assigning homework! It's attached to your job description. Another taxing district with deep pockets. Keep this in mind when Ryan runs for reelection.

[Fix Brooksite Drive]

If they don't fix this pothole heaven soon, I'm going to forward my car repair bills to the Highway Dept. This road is an nightmare!

[Common Sense]

Eric wrote:

"Ryan said his staff has been cut to 150 positions from 200 during the previous administration, and overtime was taken out of this year's budget. Ryan said the $150,000 would be insufficient overtime for other services, such as brush and leaf pickups. Under the union contract, employees sweep and haul away road debris during paving."
Why the hell are the taxpayers paying these workers overtime for brush and leaf pickups? If it's something that needs to be done during the paving process, it's part of the overall job. If you're a teacher, you don't get paid overtime for assigning homework! It's attached to your job description. Another taxing district with deep pockets. Keep this in mind when Ryan runs for reelection.

This seems a common practice that everyone wants overtime to do taks that are not of an emergency nature. To decide you need overtime for leaf and brush pick-up is a waste of resources and just padding an employee's paycheck. The fact that they put $150,000 for overtime into the budget means each employee has about a $1000 of overtime. If the supervisors and those with more senority are just holding after hour meetings to grab the money for themselves then the union should just deal with it as thye are the ones who dictated how overtime rules apply.

[AWad]

Fix Brooksite Drive wrote:

If they don't fix this pothole heaven soon, I'm going to forward my car repair bills to the Highway Dept. This road is an nightmare!

It's also a racetrack. SLOW THE FFFFFFFF DOWN!!!
BTW, I love living in Smithtown otherwise! But fix the roads and slow down!

[Peace Frog]

Overtime to pickup leaves !!! WTF? They should cut the highway department by at least half. They replaced the road and curbs on my street (Bruce Lane, KP) 2 summers ago. It was painful to watch. The job (2 blocks, about 3/4 mile) took all summer. Way to many workers mostly just standing around. Job came out like ****. The curbs are un-even, the aprons are all f'd up. It was better before they did it !! These guys are not qualified to do his type of work. At best they should fill potholes on an emergency basis. Now they want to hire more people and increase the budget by 5 mil ? Smithtown needs to stop this good old boy b/s. Enough is enough already. Cut the hwy dept in half and sub road work out to qualified private contractors and save the 5 mil + and we'll get a much better job. These good old boys need to learn that the taxpayers $$'s are not a fund to employ their high school pals.

[Assfault Guy]

They have some signs on Maple Ave about a reconstruction project for summer of 2009 does anyone know if this includes repaving the road? I've lived in the area for 17 years and I don't remember the last time it was paved. It has so many little patches it's amazing.

[Commack]

Only 15-miles of paving is a disgrace
no matter who's running the show!

[Disgusted in Smithtown]

Whenever I drive past any Smithtown trucks, I either see one guy working, while the others are standing around watching, or trucks parked in hide away locations with the guys just sitting in the vehicles. I don't believe there are any lunch breaks at 8 or 9am. With the financial crunch on, these guys should be thankful for their jobs, and if not, find a new one. There are plenty of people that would be greatful for a job. OVERTIME, give me a break!!!!!!!

[jim]

where do you find a detailed report of what roads are supposed to be repaired in this budget?

[vinnie]

dan take the $ and do the work pretty simple.thank supervisor vecchio for making smithtown americas best run town
\

[John M]

I pay a lot of taxes to Smithtown and I want my leaves picked up, my snow plowed, and roads repaired. Stop all of the bickering and "get the job done" otherwise we will get new competent people willing to do the job for less during the next election.

[John M]

Disgusted in Smithtown wrote:

Whenever I drive past any Smithtown trucks, I either see one guy working, while the others are standing around watching, or trucks parked in hide away locations with the guys just sitting in the vehicles. I don't believe there are any lunch breaks at 8 or 9am. With the financial crunch on, these guys should be thankful for their jobs, and if not, find a new one. There are plenty of people that would be greatful for a job. OVERTIME, give me a break!!!!!!!

Agreed!!!!

[Stewie]

vinnie wrote:

dan take the $ and do the work pretty simple.thank supervisor vecchio for making smithtown americas best run town
\

And damned near as currupt as Crookhaven...ya - thanks for that Pat.

[Stewie]

jjjr wrote:

These guys do a good job of maintaining the town! This is a big town in area and there is just so much you can do with 150 men! Some towns use a leaf eating machine to digest the leaves! The homeowner just rakes the leaves to the curb and the town vacuums them up! The plastic bage are eliminated! I would hazard a guess that thousands of pounds of vinyl are used every fall season! That could be eliminated with the leaf vacuum!

I am guessing that you didn't live here when Dowling was Highway Sup. Back then they did a good job of maintaining the town....not so now. As other posters have mentioned, it is not uncommin to see a group of town workers at a project, one guy working in slow motion and the rest just standing around. These guys take full advantage of their civil service protection.

[Life Long Townie]

Fix the roads? LOL! The Town of Smithtown won't even let me fix my house! On my own dime, nonetheless. You definitely don't get what you pay for in this town. I may be the next lawsuit headline you see with these condescending boneheads. By the way, make sure you vote! It's the only way to push back at the establishment.