To the editor:
In May of this year, the residents of the Duryea/Clearwater section of Nanuet heard about a proposal to install a barrier across Samuel Road in order to improve safety to Newport Drive.
Despite the short notice, 50 Nanuet residents signed a petition to ask for a comprehensive traffic study to analyze the possible effects to adjacent streets of re-routing traffic away from Newport Drive. The concern was that traffic would move to Duryea Lane and create unsafe conditions for local residents.
On May 7th Supervisor Gromeck and Joel Epstein contacted me and other petitioners detailing their plan to conduct before/after Police surveys (including Duryea Lane) to determine the effects of closing Samuel Road. On May 8th the Supervisor, in order to ease our concerns, explicitly added a police survey of Duryea Lane, an overall analysis by a named traffic engineer and a workshop to discuss the closing, a resolution which the Town Board passed unanimously .
In July after the barrier was installed I contacted Joel Epstein regarding the police surveys and was assured that the 'before' surveys had been completed.
Upon hearing that the Police Department had presented a preliminary report to the October Town Board, I once again contact Joel Epstein and received the following reply "The presentation at the Town Board meeting last Tuesday by the CPD was in lieu of the workshop on the matter". I asked for the details regarding the specific traffic counts for Duryea Lane.
After several phone calls/emails, I was informed by Lt. Donaldson of Clarkstown Police that no such survey was ever conducted. This is a clear violation of the May 8th Resolution.
In a recent 'Patch' article Town Attorney, Amy Mele, is reported as stating that the Town Board should adopt the resolution to make the barrier permanent which included the statement "that there is no demonstrable increase in traffic volumes on Duryea Lane" when according to Lt. Donaldson there is no evidence to support this.
The Town Board is apparently ignoring its own May 8th resolution and I believe that they and Supervisor Gromeck owe the residents of Duryea/Clearwater and adjacent streets an explanation.
-- Nicholas Miller
