95- Route 212 and Plochmann Lane---Look Out!

Last Thursday evening at the Planning Board meeting, planning specialist Dara Trahan told the planning board that the State DOT "approached" the town, concerning the sight line at the intersection of PLOCHMANN Lane and Route 212, or the striping at the intersection of Routes 375 and 212, or both, I'm not sure. Either way, this is entirely false.

What Dara told the Planning Board members influenced the swing vote last Thursday night on a RUPCO project question.

Dara told the Planners that the NYS Department of Transportation made a presentation before the town board "last year." This presentation actually was March 18, 2008, over two years ago. In this presentation, which is fresh in my mind since I watched it in its entirety five minutes ago, (as opposed to spontaneously recalling something that happened over two years ago,) the only intersection discussed in terms of "fixing" anything was Playhouse Lane and Route 212.

Tom Storey, of the NYS DOT, was not approaching the town with any kind of offer to fix the line of sight at Playhouse and 212, either. Rather, he said that THE STATE had been put on notice, which means that the state had been notified that a hazard existed at that intersection. What this means, legally, is that the State, SINCE and BECAUSE it was put on notice, is now obligated to fix the hazard, regardless of what the town board "wants."

The town board did not seem to appreciate this distinction. Instead, several members of the town board suggested that the State DOT study all of the intersections involving State Route 212 and fix the ones that it found to be most dangerous. The town board appeared to have no appreciation of the State DOT's position, with regard to having been put on notice.

What Tom Storey of NYS DOT explained, and what was very clear to ME watching it just now, is that the Kingston office, where he works, handles the complaints such as the notice that was given about the unsafe sight distance at Playhouse and 212, but that if the town wants a whole corridor study done, then the Poughkeepsie office handles that, and it is the town board that must apply for that study, not simply declare that they want it done INSTEAD of the State's mitigation of a reported hazard.

Terrie Rosenblum in particular was ridiculous in her completely undocumented "fact" that the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Route 212 was not dangerous. I have gathered documentation and reports, or personally witnessed six accidents at Playhouse Lane and Route 212 in one and a half years. Are there really more accidents than four per year at other intersections? Reported and documented no less?

But that's another story. The main point here is that Dara, as recently as last Thursday, June 17, completely misled the planning board by telling them that the State DOT offered to fix the intersection of Plochmann Lane and Route 212, and the intersection of Route 212 and Route 375, and that the town rejected this "offer," and that information is simply false.

This falsity of information is relevant since Paul Henderson reasoned that since the town had the chance to fix this intersection and rejected it, it should not be up to RUPCO or the State, at this time, to deal with something that the town "had their chance" to fix but chose not to.

Henderson's decision to give RUPCO a break is entirely misguided, and a product of Dara's falsifying the town board record. Had Dara presented the truth instead of false information to sway the board's vote, perhaps she would have then been directed to tell the town's traffic consultant that the Planning Board wished to pursue the traffic matter.

Once more, we see the Planning Board making decisions based on fantasy, not fact, this time supplied by their planning specialist.

If that's how they want to do it, I guess they can.

For now.