APR 28, 2021 —
Do you have experience with Grants? Help us find Grant funding to save our Historical Bridges! The more eyes we have watching potential grants the better! We’ve found a few small grants this week that could make a little progress, but we are hoping to find the big grant soon! Usually May-June is the grant cycle to watch out for. Thanks!
If you have any potential leads please email keesevillehistoricbridges(at)gmail.com
APR 24, 2021 —
Every time I have been out today I see more and more signs going up. It’s really fun to see 8 months of research starting to pay off. Thank you all for the support!
Make sure to grab yours ASAP. It’s very important we send a message that we are a community that wants to work with the Counties to get this done. Hopefully we won’t have to keep the signs up for a long time, but it’s definitely important to send a strong message at the beginning. The more signs up the better! Pick up your signs today at Loreman’s, Peru Credit Union, Arnolds, Stewarts, and the town offices! Later this weekend they will also be available at Ridged Performance (Ausable St) and on Tuesday Keeseville Free Library!
Also,
Thank you to the Town of Ausable crew that cleaned up the area in front of the Old State Road on the Clinton County Side of the river! It looks great! Last year the community was able to clean in front of the Upper Bridge, and now both bridges are looking better and better. Let’s get those yard signs up and find a way to get this accomplished!
APR 22, 2021 —
Watch the WCAX News story here:
Thank you WCAX for running the story on our bridges tonight. I’d like to clarify a couple of things that were stated. I mean these in the most positive ways, and it’s not meant to take anything away from what was said by either county.
-Our county officials have grant writing teams that can research grants to cover the cost of these bridges. They have the experience, but need to be directed by the County to do research. Clinton County has applied for two grants recently (Swing Bridge and Old State Road Bridge) – Thank you!
-$3 Trillion in Federal Infrastructure money, $10 Billion in Federal Infrastructure money made available, $310 Billion in NYS Infrastructure money made available, $96 Million in Bridge NY funds made available, CHIPS money that each county could be used, but we have been asked not to use that. Clinton County received $1 Million in extra CHIPS money for this year. DOT money could be made available if the right conditions were met. Somewhere in all of that, has to be a way to fund our bridges. But I’m asked to find ‘creative means’ to cover the cost of the bridges.
– Shaun Gilliland was speaking about the plans to put vehicles over the bridges and what the weight limits would be…and he hadn’t ‘seen plans’. With all due respect, he was informed by our Town Supervisor (and invited by me) of a meeting we had with Town Board Members, Officials and Highway Departments with an Engineer who laid out a plan on how to restore the Upper Bridge. That engineer was not selling his business but providing information on a solution. Shaun did not attend that meeting.
-“Over $2 Million per bridge to make the repairs necessary” is not the cost of the restoring bridges. The Old State Bridge was far less than that. The Swing bridge wasn’t anywhere close to that cost. Each county has only one closed bridge to account for. Grants cover 80% and the rest is split 50/50 between the counties….(10% each county) costing taxpayers nearly nothing. We have even discussed ways of making this remaining cost less.
-We also had an engineer quote the Upper Bridge at 1-1.65 Million barring any long drawn out NYS processes.
-Let’s work together to find a solution, rather than finding ways that we can’t make it happen.
