Flooding Devastates Holiday Way

By Joshua Walther

SCHOHARIE - During the Schoharie Town Board meeting on Wednesday evening, a concerned resident of Holiday Way came before the members to bring up her issues with the local drainage system.

Showing photo and video proof of her claims, the resident stated that the recent rainfall has turned her and her neighbors’ properties into swamps.

Not only was there water that rose up to the road, but some vehicles were also affected, being submerged underwater up to their doors and remaining inaccessible.

The resident said that she believed the problem was the drainage system, pointing to a pipe that’s only two feet in diameter that does most of the heavy lifting.

“The pipes were at 100%,” she said. “The drains are horribly undersized.”

Highway Superintendent Les Foland backed up the notion, saying “The pipes were doing as much as they could take.”

The reason why the pipes are so mismanaged was due to the county replacing the system several years ago for free but at the cost of little to no engineering work, according to the resident.

Yet when she suggested that the Town resize everything to better serve the area, Superintendent Foland wasn’t so sure.

“That pipe’s twelve, fifteen feet in the ground. It’s not going to be easy to replace if you want it bigger,” he mentioned.

Despite the sentiment, Supervisor Ben Oevering wanted to do whatever he could, saying “Send me the pictures and videos and I will see what we can do. We’ll put our heads together and solve this.”

In other news, the Town received a proposal from TextMyGov after being referred by the Village.

The proposal includes a way for local governments to reach out to their constituents about announcements, notices and everything else a municipality could think of, all through text messages.

The standard plan would offer a total of 250,000 text messages rolled out per year, at the cost of $2,800 annually and an additional one-time start-up cost of $1,200.

Discussions opened with member Marion Jaqueway, who wondered why they couldn’t share a plan with the Village if they already used the service.

Supervisor Oevering said that they could look into a combined plan, but after pushback from all three other Board members who claimed they did not have a current need for it, the proposal was denied.