It seems that Nassau County will be moving forward with plans to reconstruct West Shore Rd. with construction starting in September of ’07 and continuing through May of ’08. This is a $16.5 million project that will apparently be undertaken specifically without public input.

The following is a link to Nassau County’s "Capital Improvement Plan 2007 – 2010".

Go to page 257 of the document (pg. 273 in the adobe page window at the bottom of the window).

The second paragraph of the Project Description section states "This project is for the discrete rehabilitation of sections of this roadway and seawall. Several alternatives for this improvement have met with community opposition, however at this time, consensus has been developed with the elected officials on a conceptual plan to move this project forward."

It is difficult to tell how extensive this plan is from this document. Last year’s version of the same document states under the Current Status section "Currently evaluating options for improvements to this road. Options include a bike path", while this document states "Currently designing seawall only, not the road".

Several years ago I attended the public meeting regarding a past design that I believe was considerably larger in scope. If my memory serves me correctly, the estimated cost of that project was ~$40 million. The project included widening, straightening and raising the road, adding a third "breakdown lane", a 5’ wide sidewalk and replacing the existing seawall with a corrugated steel seawall (to achieve that rusty industrial look). That project faced considerable opposition. Some of the concerns that were expressed were the lack of a bike path, the corrugated steel wall, the considerable widening, encroachment into existing wetlands and the fact that no there was no plan to place the utility wires underground. There was also no plan to raise the section of roadway under the trestle, which, as we all know, is the first place to flood.

It is obvious that this roadway and seawall are in need repair and replacement, but doing so without public input is a serious breach of public trust. The likelihood is that in order to reduce the cost of the project a corrugated steel wall will be used in place of the existing concrete wall. I hope that this is not the case, to me this is unacceptable and will result in one of our community’s most valuable resources looking like an industrial shipyard.

I hope that this plan will be presented to the public during the planning stage so that our concerns can be addressed.

Barry E. Lamb

Bayville