Mahopac Park & Ride Approved

Mahopac Legislator Dini LoBue is fuming this week after her colleagues on the Putnam Legislature voted to proceed with a controversial park-and-ride on Mt. Hope Road at Route 6 in Mahopac.

The legislative action stunned residents of the community, since in September the lawmakers decided to stop the work and then overturned a resolution by County Executive Robert Bondi, who maintained scrapping the project would cost the county $1 million in grants and restoration costs.

Putnam County has received about $3.5 million from Uncle Sam and New York State taxpayers for five commuter parking lots across eastern Putnam, including the Mahopac park-and-ride. The other lots near I-84 have posed no controversy since they are not located near private residences.

At a special meeting of the Legislature last week that followed a meeting of the Protective Services Committee, a vote of 7-2, with Legislators LoBue and Mary Ellen Odell of Carmel casting the negative votes, allowed the project to proceed.

LoBue told the Courier, “My colleagues’ action has resulted in a sad day for Putnam County. People who live in unaffected areas of park-andride lots have sacrificed the quality of life for hard working, tax-paying residents— those who are the backbone of our county. Once again government has failed the people whom it is supposed to serve.”

Legislator Vincent Tamagna of Nelsonville, who chairs the Physical Services Committee, said the 30 spaces agreed upon was a “fair compromise,” and represented the “best concession” between the original 60 spaces and the residents’ desire for none.

For two hours, discussion and debate at the public forum was hot and heavy among members of the legislature as well as the public, with frequent outbursts and shouting. At one point, Tamagna warned those in attendance that unless the flare-ups ceased, he would request police to remove all unruly parties.

LoBue called the evening a “sequel to a bad Halloween movie. It keeps on coming back. People went away thinking this issue was dead. What’s the rush to push it through? This is a recipe for disaster. It is insane to proceed, due to pending litigation.”

A half dozen residents living in the area addressed the legislature, urging that the project be allowed to die.

Bernard Kilkenney described traffic at the intersection of Route 6 and Mt. Hope Road “incredibly slow on a good day. That’s without the park-and-ride and a proposal to erect 95 new condominiums on an existing development with access onto Mt. Hope Road.”

Robert Laga, who has spearheaded a community campaign against the proposal, called the park-and-ride a “flipflop scandal. The executive’s veto was overturned. You demonstrated to the people of Putnam County that checks and balances existed in county government. This flip-flop is criminal. I sat in at a meeting with the county executive, Deputy County Executive John Tully, and Legislators LoBue and Tony Fusco, and was told by Mr. Bondi if the legislators voted to stop the project he would respect that vote.”

Ann Fanizzi of Southeast, an environmental watchdog who often addresses issues relating to the environment and the preservation of nature, charged the park-and-ride was being studied “upside down. It makes no sense!”

At the insistence of Putnam County Attorney Jennifer Bumgarner, Tully declined to comment, citing pending litigation, since a number of the homeowners in the Mahopac Ridge area have hired an attorney who filed a motion for an injunction stopping the project.

State Supreme Court Justice Andrew O’Rourke has yet to hear from both sides.

Tully did say the county’s next step will be to get a design plan approved by the state as well as a traffic study conducted.