Twichell went to bat for residents of Leverett Street, which she lives near, demanding that Department of Public Works chief Scott Marsh not resurface the street because they think it will worsen flooding issues. She didn’t get any support from other Fredonia officials.

Marsh stated that oiling and stoning of village roads was set to begin and Twichell mentioned Leverett Street. “We had a resident send us a video and it’s pretty bad when it rains really hard,” the trustee said.

“It’s a low lying area, it drains out,” Marsh said.

Twichell replied, “It goes into their basements. Did you see the video?”

“I didn’t see anything where it was going into basements,” Marsh said. “I saw that there was, unfortunately, water on the road.”

“I think the point being that we don’t need to redo that road again,” said Twichell. “It’s just crowning of the road. It’s causing more issues for those residents with the water. I’d like for you to not do that.”

“It’s gonna protect the road,” Marsh insisted. “Chip sealing is like sealing your driveway. We’re not adding much material.”

“It’s a problem,” Twichell said.

Trustee Nicole Siracuse interjected, “I don’t think we should be telling Scott what roads to maintain.”

“When there’s a problem, I’d like to address it,” Twichell replied.

“I understand that and I think it’s very unfortunate,” said Siracuse, “but I don’t think that adding a very thin layer of oil and then a little thin layer of stone is going to change any amount of flooding that’s happening on that street, especially when a lot of the flooding is actually on the street itself. We have to still maintain our infrastructure.”

Twichell said Leverett Street does not have proper curbing, which contributes to the flooding. “That’s what I’m here for, my constituents’ needs. And people along that street have reached out to me to speak about it and that’s what I’m doing now.”

Siracuse questioned if curbs would help. Twichell said the street was properly curbed when it was a brick road, and there were fewer problems.

“I’ve looked into it, I see what the problem is. We have problems all over the village,” Marsh said.

Twichell held firm. “They’re requesting that we hold off on that street.”

“So we’re going to let our infrastructure not be maintained?” Siracuse wondered. Marsh had a somewhat snarky comment about Twichell’s “expertise opinion.”

“What you’re really asking Scott to do is have that road ripped up, and start over and make it lower,” commented Trustee Jon Espersen.

“Well, eventually, I think you’re going to have to, because this is a problem. It looks like a river running down the street,” said Twichell.

“There’s a river running down my street every time it rains hard, too,” Espersen said.

On Thursday, a “Loose Stone” hazard sign was on Leverett Street in apparent preparation for Marsh’s crews. With rainy weather in the area, no resurfacing work was getting done.