“The people across the road from me are bottoming-out,” said 12 Monroe Street resident Timothy Eppolito. “They’re forced to drive up into their yard.”

The drop was bad enough for one resident that her car was damaged coming out of her driveway. “Our vehicle bottomed out and a piece of my vehicle fell off,” said 16 Monroe Street resident Suzanne Prince-Rivera. “The first time, they didn’t pack enough at the end of our driveway. They did pave our road, but they left the entire bottom of the road undone, so now there’s about a two-inch lip that we have to bump over.”

Prince-Rivera went on to say, “We’ve been dealing with this for several months now. They’ve even diverted school buses because the roads have been so bad.”

Mayor Jeffrey Hornburg commented on the length of the construction project. “When we do paving, we rely on the town of Hanover for a paver and support,” he noted. “(They) had an agreement made with Municipal Solutions, the company that does the milling…they were coming out to mill Front Street for us. Then we could blacktop both (Front & Monroe) at the same time.”

OBSERVER Photos by J.M. Lesinski Residents of Monroe Street in Silver Creek, pictured, voiced their concerns over ongoing construction on the street at the most recent meeting of the Silver Creek Village Board Monday.

Hornburg went on to say, “They got held up, we got held up, and (Highway Superintendent) Steve (D’Angelo) had to do other projects for the town of Hanover. I’m hoping he’s ready to start sometime next week, he’s going to pave Monroe Street and move right on down to Front.”

Additionally, Hornburg stated, “They (the crews) spent a day and a half, two trees fell in the creek on Parkway. The trees crossed the creek and had to be removed before the weather gets too inclement because they impede (the flow of) the creek.”

Prince-Rivera’s husband, Roger Prince-Rivera, then also commented, “The job’s uneven…I understand you have a small crew, but the job wasn’t very careful. My driveway goes from a 1-inch lip to a 3-inch lip, so when I try and pull my car in, it depends where I hit on whether or not I’m going to bottom out.”

He then elaborated that he witnessed construction taking place one day, and the worker, while polite, didn’t address his concerns. “When they were pouring the binder I was there when they put it my driveway,” Prince-Rivera said. “While they were there, I said, ‘can you please make this a little more even? It’s going to cause problems.’ (They said) ‘No, it’ll be fine.’ No, it wasn’t.”

Robert Denteese of 11 Monroe Street, also at the meeting, noted, “The day they did the grinding…I came home from work and they didn’t put anything to get into my driveway. It was nine-and-a-half, ten inches just sheer straight down. I couldn’t get up my own driveway with my Ram 1500 in four wheel drive.”

In other news, the board tabled the purchase of a dump body and snow plow package from Valley Fab and Equipment at a cost of $71,559,60, an additional plow wing from Valley Fab and Equipment at a cost of $2,324.15 and a John Deere loader bucket at the cost of $13,500, pending a meeting with Highway Superintendent Steve D’Angelo.

The next meeting of the Silver Creek Village Board will be Aug. 19 at 7 p.m.