KINGSTON – More than $10 million will
be spent improving Ulster County’s roads and bridges, as part of
an ambitious plan dubbed “Building a Better Ulster County”
by officials in the county executive’s office.
County Executive Michael Hein spoke Thursday morning in Kingston, before
a packed audience at the monthly Ulster County Chamber of Commerce breakfast,
explaining the measure approved Tuesday by the legislature. So many people
attended, that the parking area became gridlocked, and police were required
to direct traffic.
“The greatest generation did something amazing; what they did was
built out our nation,” Hein said. Since that time, he observed,
politicians neglected maintenance in favor of more popular programs.
“It was neglected over a period of time, 30, 40, 50 years, we’re
talking about the end of a useful life for a particular bridge or roadway,”
Hein noted. “This isn’t new; we’ve been thinking about
this for six years, scrimping and saving and restructuring the government,
so that we can get the money to invest in this process,” he said.
To that end, $3.5 million will be leveraged with state and federal funds
to snowball a $10 million infrastructure overhaul. “This year is
the year,” Hein said.
“It’s not just about repaving the road, it’s re-thinking
the road,” Hein indicated.
Hein also discussed local tourism, touching upon an agreement with the
New York City Department of Environmental Protection, to open up extensive
trails to the public for the first time in 100 years, along the Ashokan
Reservoir.
In addition to $2.5 million in funding from DEP, the agency will also
spend another $2 million of its own money on improvements. Furthermore,
the DEP has offered to advertise Ulster County to all of its metropolitan
customer households. “It’s advertising we couldn’t possibly
buy,” Hein said.
