Borough must repair roads, end flood risk

I must commend you on an excellent article on a subject that is near and dear to my heart, “Flooding on Sayreville Street Is Considered ‘Major Hazard,’ ” (Suburban, Dec. 3).

I live on Brook Avenue just around the corner from the “major safety hazard,” the frequent flooding on Singleton Street. I have lived here for 18 years, and the roads in my Morgan neighborhood were in need of repaving when I moved in. I am still waiting for this to happen.

The major cause of the flooding is the insufficient repair of a giant sinkhole at the intersection of Singleton and Brook, which happened nearly two years ago. The repair is not level with the rest of the roadway, so rainwater pools there. To compound the problem, many of the storm sewers in the area are pitched higher than the surrounding roadway. Rainwater does not flow uphill.

With the amount of taxes that we pay, I constantly wonder where the money goes, besides to our school system. I find it hard to believe that we have budget issues, where no money is ever available to repave these roads. I find it even harder to believe that there are no emergency funds currently available for repairs. Why is that? Kath Street, which is around the next corner, has so many bumps on it that I refuse to drive on it.

I became nauseated when I read Chief Financial Officer Wayne Kronowski’s quote: “People can’t come up every meeting asking for something to be done when it was never contemplated during the course of the year.” How could this not have been contemplated when this botched repair has been this way for nearly two years? How about taking care of our neighborhoods as was promised in the many mailings sent to our houses at election time?

I also would like to thank you for your front-page article about the potential increases in water rates in Sayreville. It is outrageous how the story suddenly changes after the election. Enough is enough already.

Richard Ruzanski
Morgan section of Sayreville