In a brief Village of Old Westbury Board of Trustees meeting with barely a quorum of members, village officials discussed the rampant pothole problem on a number of roads caused by the changing temperatures and late winter storms.
“Potholes throughout the village are atrocious,” Superintendent of Buildings and Public Works Michael Malatino said during the meeting Monday. “This winter is beating us up. It rains, it’s warm, the water soaks into the street, it freezes the next night and we have nothing but a tremendous amount of potholes. We’re on it.”
Malatino said potholes have recently been filled by village crews on Little Wheatley Road, North Bacon Road, Meadow Road, Morgan Drive, Applegreen Drive, Linden Lane, Steel Hill Road and Red Ground Road.
“In my truck, I’m blowing tires,” Malatino said. “In our village trucks, we’ve blown two or three tires. Some of them aren’t potholes; they’re crevices you fall into.”
Trustee Leslie Fastenberg said one of the worst potholes she has encountered is on the Long Island Expressway’s North Service Road that has been filled but has since opened up.
Resident Cheryl Gimbel said she has also had problems with potholes on service roads past Glen Cove Road into East Hills.
The service road is a Nassau County-owned road, Malatino said, and could not be controlled by the village.
“In 29 years here, this is the worst I’ve seen it,” Old Westbury Police Chief Robert Glaser said. “We have called [Nassau County] numerous times, and the county has responded, though it sometimes takes more than one phone call. They have filled in all the potholes on both service roads, but like Michael said, as soon as we get a freeze, they break up again.”
In other business, the Board of Trustees as the Board of Assessors approved tax exemption applications for 13 institutions in the village — Lutheran Life Church, Catholic Cemeteries of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, Old Westbury Gardens, Long Island University, Greater New York Corporation of Seventh Day Adventists, Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, Bethel United Pentecostal Church, Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation, Korean Woodside Presbyterian Church of New York, Community Services Support, Lubavitch of Old Westbury, Central Presbyterian Church of New York and Ban Suk United Methodist Church.
Mayor Fred Carillo said the application from New York Institute of Technology would be continued.
The board also approved Old Westbury Gardens’ calendar of events for 2018 except for Rise of the Jack O’Lanterns, which Carillo said will require a separate application.
