Dealing With Yesterday, Tomorrow!

Ben Meyers Discovers Woodbury And Informs The Photo News

Recently, I announced that I am a candidate for mayor of the Village of Woodbury and my running mates for the positions of Trustees are Frederick Ungerer and George Pedersen.

I have written to Orange County Legislature Majority Leader Roxanne Donnery, state Sen. William J. Larkin Jr. and state Assemblywoman Nancy Calhoun concerning the issues of taxes, traffic and other very important matters of great importance to our Village of Woodbury.

The Woodbury Commons shopping center located in Central Valley generates the greatest, by far, sales tax revenue in Orange County. Woodbury suffers all of the hardships of traffic, which is horrendous, and crime.

Yet Woodbury receives approximately 4 percent of the sales tax generated from “The Commons.” The rest of the county benefits from the other 96 percent of this revenue, yet they share none of hardships.

Because of the congestion, commuters that live in the Village north of “The Commons” sometimes take 45 minutes, or more, to get home after exiting Route 6, the Thruway or Route 17.

A population explosion north of Central Valley has created an enormous volume of traffic. This major congestion must be relieved by routing traffic off of Route 32 and around Central Valley and Highland Mills.

Relieving this dangerous commuter traffic (it is difficult to safely enter onto and exit off of Route 32) will have little or no impact on local businesses to whose growth I am sensitive.

This change of traffic pattern can be executed by putting another Thruway exit halfway between Harriman and Newburgh. A dangerous situation should make pedestrian injury or death a less likelihood, while also creating enormous relief for commuters and other travelers going to the northern edge of Highland Mills, Cornwall and Vales Gate in New Windsor.

Benjamin Meyers

Candidate for mayor

Village of Woodbury


Does anyone have the heart to break it to Ben that these new problems that he just discovered have been around for years and that people have been trying to solve them for years?

A good number of Woodburians have been looking into way to change the way tax revenue from the Common is distributed and have been working with Nancy Calhoun to try to get a Thruway exit added.

And yes, so far there has been no success.

But Meyers isn't offering any solutions either. All that he is doing,and rather belatedly at that, is announcing that he has discovered that there are problems.

And it's wonderful that, now that he is running for mayor, he has discovered these problems.

But it would have been finer still if his interest extended to finding out what's been tried and what roadblocks have been encountered and to reaching out to those in Woodbury who have been attempting to deal with these issues.

For example, he might have taken part in the South East Orange Traffic Task Force meetings which were aimed at dealing with Woodbury's traffic problems.

And it would have been lovely if he had cared enough to notice these things before he decided that he ought to be mayor.

Better late than never, but it looks a little foolish to send off letters to the papers claiming credit for just discovering problems that others have already been working on for years.

Any ideas about solutions Mr. Meyers?

Or is that asking too much?