County Abandons HH Congestion Relief

On May 27 at 6 PM (with a Caucus at 4 PM) in the HH Library, County Council will vote on a plan to try to appease the State Infrastructure Bank (SIB) in order to retain their promised $120 million in Corridor funds. Their Resolution proposes several things:

It spends all our 2018 Tax Referendum funding on two new eastbound bridges and connections, including Pinckney Island connections, ending at roughly Windmill Harbor (WH), as well as retention and improvement of the WH traffic signal with mast arms. These will cost $311.6 million and are to complete by December 31, 2031, over 13 years after our 2018 Referendum.

This at least solves the Mackay span safety concerns, and kills the mega-bridge, but it is a Bait and Switch from what we were led to believe included congestion relief for the HH work force and residents. If they had stuck to their promises, and only repaired or replaced the aging span, at least $70 million would have been available for that much needed congestion relief work and could have addressed the congestion issues caused by 3 - 4 clogged traffic lights and failed merge problems.

But there is more: The proposed resolution binds County taxpayers to cover any overage over the $311.6 million. Also, county taxpayers must reimburse the SIB’s funding (could be up to $120 million) if all components of the project do not complete by December 31, 2031. Looking ahead 6 1/2 years, that seems highly risky.

There is still more: I now detect that the 2018 Corridor promises that were broken will be packaged as sweeteners into a proposed 2026 Tax Referendum. The theory seems to be that the County needs the HH vote for their 2026 Referendum, and that HH Citizens will not remember the Bait and Switch, and terrible and back room planning that systematically cut Citizens out of the Corridor process after their money was collected.

The thing I have a hard time understanding is the complete failure of most of HH Town Council to assert itself to assure that HH got a detailed and quantitative Master Plan for the Corridor, a fair share of the funds we contributed, and the respectful treatment of a large number of Citizens who worked hard for solutions. It seems that the Mayor and Town Staff were more interested in appeasing County Council than solving our problems.