Good morning everyone.
Please see the attached letter (downloadable) requesting an Extension of the I-81 FEIS comment period. It takes awhile to get through 35,000 pages of information.
I’ve shared it with the members of the Onondaga County Legislature. Please share it with anyone you choose to. (Sample letter)
Let me know if you have suggestions and if we can share it will our fellow legislators. Maybe, with discussion, we can get people across the table to sign it.
As with the I-81 Draft Environmental Impact Study (DEIS), after studying it in NYCLU workshops at the Dunbar Center and reaching out to the EPA, the NYSDOT was notified of our concerns regarding increasing traffic patterns on the Southside to 42,000 cars a day and lack of air quality mitigation, when you consider residents on the Southside, especially our children have the highest rates of respiratory illness.
The Devil is in the details. It will take a bit of time to go through 35,000 pages (the FEIS) to determine if those concerns have been met and if we have new ones to consider, such as the roundabout at Van Buren and Martin Luther King East becoming a “Dead End” which definitely does not create the “Connecting Communities” Syracuse and the NYSDOT have been touting and the fact that it does not address our traffic and increased air pollution concerns (Source: Appendix C-3: Page 14 This shows that no data was collected or impact assessed on the vulnerable streets in the residential neighborhood).
If you have concerns or are as outraged as I am, please feel free to send a copy of this letter to Mark Frechette and Rick Marquis at the following emails requesting a 90 extension for us to go through these 35,000 pages. We need to. I was raised learning the statement “When you want to hide something from Black people, put it in a book.” Yes. A 35,000-page book. It will take time.
Add you name and email the Letter to:
Mark Frechette (Mark.Frechette@dot.ny.gov)
Rick Marquis (Rick.Marquis@dot.gov)
Strength Through Solidarity
Be well. Be blessed. Be safe.
