YESeleven is disappointed by St. Lawrence County legislators

Local activist group YESeleven said it is disappointed the St. Lawrence County Board of Legislators turned aside its offer to work cooperatively on improving Route 11 by focusing instead on its hopes for an interstate.

“It seems many legislators just can’t let go of the I-98 idea,” YESeleven spokesman John T. Casserly said in a statement. “This is a prime example of the price of the ongoing I-98 drama. The state has decided to spend $6.3 million to improve something we depend upon daily, and St. Lawrence County is acting like it doesn’t want the money.”

A county legislative committee approved a resolution Monday that supported construction of an I-98 multi-modal corridor — including rail and port upgrades — as well as supporting improvements to Route 11, with initial priority for areas in Canton, Potsdam and Gouverneur. However, a majority of legislators said they believe a $6.3 million 2005 federal earmark was for an environmental impact review for an interstate, not for the state Department of Transportation to spend on Route 11.

“It’s crystal clear the Board of Legislators supports improvements to Route 11. They must have read the intent wrong,” said Legislator Vernon D. “Sam” Burns, D-Ogdensburg, who represents the county on the Northern Corridor Transportation Group. “We will never agree on the $6.3 million.”

John W. Danis, YESeleven, said the resolution passed by the county was a backdoor way of elevating I-98 to the forefront while making it appear legislators also care about Route 11.

“They were going to be in a bad spot if they voted against improving Route 11,” he said.

Members of YESeleven chose not to attend the meeting to avoid being drawn into an argument about the virtues of I-98, he said.

“As soon as they insisted on including I-98 in the discussion, we knew that the whole meeting would become us getting preached at about the rooftop highway all over again. I believe that it would have become a point-counterpoint, tit-for-tat debate about Route 11 versus the rooftop highway,” Mr. Danis said. “Our mission for the past year now has been to get Route 11 to the center of the discussion.”

More than 500 people have signed the organization’s online petition and some town and village boards have supported its efforts.

“We didn’t ask for money or ask legislators to abandon their own ideas,” Mr. Danis said. “We just said, ‘Let’s work together to get this money here to create local jobs, give the local economy a boost, and make Route 11, the highway many of us travel every day, safer and more efficient.” The $6.3 million is something supporters of I-98 need to sort out with DOT, but St. Lawrence County cannot afford to reject the use of the money, he said.

Pushing improvements for Route 11 is ironic in that DOT’s plan faced widespread criticism at a public hearing in 2008 in Canton, Mr. Burns said.

“No one supported it,” he said. “Either they forgot that or they don’t want people to remember. Right now, Region 7 of the DOT has no plan.”

The fight for I-98 has nothing to do with DOT’s lack of work on Route 11, said Jason A. Clark, chairman of the Northern Corridor Transportation Group.

“We haven’t stopped anything on Route 11,” he said. “We don’t even have any agreement on what should be fixed on Route 11.”

Mr. Burns said he is willing to work with anyone who wants to demand more state and federal money to improve transportation in the area.