New Hyde Park Issuing Bids for Jericho Turnpike Revitalization

After numerous years of waiting, the Village of New Hyde Park began advertising for bids for its revitalization of Jericho Turnpike project on May 8.

Commonly known as Operation: Mainstreet, the bids will be opened on June 6 and will include new fixtures such as pavers, street furniture, street plantings, and irrigation to the plantings in the state-built medians.

“While the village has been working with the state department of transportation for many, many years, trying to coordinate the construction of the project with work that is currently being done by the state, at this point in time, when we get to awarding this contract, I believe that they’re – and the state, I’ll blame it on them 100 percent – there will be some redundancy,” trustee Donald Barbieri said during a meeting of the village board on May 7 at the village hall. “We’re going to find out what that is and I will speak more about it, but I’m fearful that there’s going to be work done and we’re going to have to upset that work. I believe it’s going to be extremely difficult to avoid that type of circumstance.”

Barbieri believed that construction of the new features on Jericho Turnpike would begin late June or early July. Currently, a series of state crews and contractors are resurfacing Jericho Turnpike beginning in Mineola and then going back to the state line and working eastward towards Herricks Road.

Detailing some of the numerous hurdles, Barbieri noted that “in the 24th hour” after all paperwork was submitted, received notice that several environmental reports that were filed years ago expired and needed to be updated before the village was able to go out to bid.

“P.S. they have three other contractors working in the same corridor who must have by the law done the same environmental research that we would, we are now at the 24th hour be required to do,” Barbieri said, noting that the project’s work on some of the corners of Jericho Turnpike may impact the new pavement scheduled to be put down.

Lofaro said that “extraordinary things” were done relating to the Operation: Mainstreet project as the village board had to hold an emergency meeting on Sunday, April 28 to pass a resolution with “slightly different wording” than one already passed “because the state was not satisfied with the resolution so we had to get that done so that we kept our timelines going along.”

The mayor also noted that the state “beat him down,” referring to Barbieri.

“We had submitted plans in inches and they wanted it in millimeters so we had to redo all our plans in millimeters, we submitted it and they said ‘no, now we want it back in inches, but a different type of inches’, so we had to redo the plans three times. It’s just unconscionable about how this process worked.”

The Jericho Turnpike repaving has also not gone on without complaints as resident Hazel McCord stated that crews “dug up the sidewalks, the lawns,” of her neighbors on New Hyde Park Road and she also has cracks in her walls.

Tully Construction is the contractor on the project. According to Lofaro, the village “has not been advised at all at one time or not alt all on what their schedule is” and “has absolutely no idea what they’re doing where.”

McCord stated that she spoke to one of the construction workers who stated that the machine can cause structural damage.

It was suggested that McCord or any other resident reach out to their insurance company as well as legal counsel if damage was done to the home and legal action is necessary.

“We basically have no jurisdiction on what they do on the state road,” Lofaro said. “This is actually on a county road that they did this work as well, again, we were not informed of any of the schedule as well.”

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