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On the Mark
A podcast with Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz.
On the Mark
On the Mark: Episode One
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Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz hosts a discussion with Commissioner of Public Works Bill Geary.
Hello and welcome to On the Mark, a discussion dedicated to local, state, and national issues affecting government and its bosses, you, the people. I'm your host, Mark Pollenkars, the Erie County, New York executive. And in the upcoming weeks and months, I will be joined by leaders from all across the country to talk about the issues that impact us all, from health care delivery, budgetary constraints, the effect of recent federal actions on local and state government, including ICE, to infrastructure investment and beyond. But before we begin, I think it's important to discuss my view of government and what is the guiding view of my administration. I believe that government can be a force of good in people's lives. And it should be, because government at its core, is a representation of its people, the embodiment of their collective goals. It should be aspirational in nature, a manifestation of our better angels, and be the captain of the communal ship setting the course for all. That's my view view of government and how we've managed Erie County successfully for 14 years. However, a government is not a static entity, it must be a proactive force to address the needs of its constituents as well as reactive to support its citizens in their time of need, whether it be in response to a disaster, domestic terrorism, such as the May 22nd or May 2022 shooting at the topps market in Buffalo, or as we all endured a global pandemic. So let's get started with the discussion. Today I'm pleased to be joined by William Bill Gary Jr., the Commissioner of the Erie County Department of Public Works and the recently named new president of the New York State County Highway Superintendents Association. Bill began his career with the Erie County Department of Public Works in 2008 as a senior highway maintenance engineer and through diligence and exemplary performance rose to become Commissioner of Public Works in the Department in 2017, where he has overseen major infrastructure initiatives and modernized operations to better serve Erie County residents. In addition to his public service to the people of Erie County, uh Bill Geary has honorably served our country as a senior master sergeant in the United States Air Force, the second highest enlisted rank in the Air Force, exemplifying his dedication to duty, discipline, and leadership both at home and in uniform. So welcome to On the Mark, Bill.
SPEAKER_00Good afternoon, County Executive. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01Call me Mark.
SPEAKER_00All right, Mark. It's not on the County Executive. It's on the mark.
SPEAKER_01But uh tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and your family.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh so born born and raised here in Buffalo, uh, graduated high school, went into the military, took advantage of the education programs, and really thought it was just gonna be uh one term, get out, go finish up my college education. Uh that actually turned into 33 years of service. Uh my wife I met through that time frame uh a little later on. Uh we have three daughters. We live in West Seneca still, but uh the military definitely gave me uh the foundation I needed through life. Uh really gave me some direction. But ultimately, the tools that I apply today in public works, but in my own guiding principles, uh, was a great foundation. And obviously the education benefits second to none. Uh really and still taking advantage of some of that. And my daughters will still have opportunity to take care of those education benefits when they go to college.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, one of the greatest things that came out of World War II was the GI Bill and the benefits that happened for serving and giving an opportunity to uh the country to give back to those who serve by supporting them through their education, and there's a lot of folks who take advantage of that, and they should. Uh you've had an interesting career because before Erie County, you worked where?
SPEAKER_00Uh I was with Tana West Seneca.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I started out uh going to college uh part-time, working in the military, and had night being a Zamboni driver at the West Seneca Ice Rank uh in the summers, painting soccer fields, uh, then eventually, you know, worked into just being a labor classification in the highway department, buildings and ground. So did everything um from the bottom up, you know, really starting out in my career. Uh so I have a lot of empathy for our workforce. You know, I've been able to say I've I've been out there filling potholes, um, working in the cold climate, sitting in a plow truck, um, all hours of the day, all hours of the night, you know, uh that that time you have to give back. But it's a rewarding career. Uh and and I really appreciate it, those opportunities.
SPEAKER_01You're probably the first and only commissioner in the history of the of Erie County to have been a Zamboni driver.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh yeah. That was uh one of the funnest jobs ever, man. You know, at uh doing the ice, all the little kids, you're you're a celebrity out there when you're a Zamboni driver.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you're a celebrity there. Then if you keep the ice open a little later in the evening, you might get an extra beer or two and hand it to you from the late night hockey players.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there was always that fringe benefit too, possibly out there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I played hockey. I understand that. So uh is the Commissioner Department of Public Works. Most people just think of public works and highways, but there's a lot to it, including buildings and ground, fleet maintenance and our utilities. So, what's your day-to-day like day like as a commissioner of public works?
SPEAKER_00Uh so a typical day starts uh especially now about 6 a.m. We have uh the crews we just transitioned out of plowing uh during plow season. That's really our baseline. We're running 24 hour operations, as you know. Uh usually our crews work eight-hour shifts with four hours on the backside of their shift uh with overtime if needed during the plowing season. But it starts out with updates. Uh when we have the largest infrastructure that we do, you know, uh people may not realize the county's road network is almost uh 2,600 lane miles, which you know that that's probably the largest in the country uh as for a county. It's definitely in the state. Uh we've talked about this a couple of times. You know, there's three states that don't even have that many roads. Uh the bridges. So there's always going to be with that big of an inventory, something going on. You know, it could be uh motor vehicle accidents through the night, trees down, power lines with the weather. Uh so a lot of times it's uh getting brought up to speed, alerts from Night, who's kind of like our clearinghouse, uh Nagar Informational Transportation and Technology Coalition. Um they do a great job because they get all the dispatch from the utilities from the law enforcement agencies on our roads and then let our crews know. Um but a typical day starts with a list that I probably never even get to get to because by the time I get in the office, it's changed. But yeah, there's uh highways, you know, has that huge inventory. Our building inventory is just as massive for uh the staff that we have. You know, public works, truthfully between buildings and grounds, highways, fleet, and then the utility aggregate, we're just shy of probably 400 employees total. Uh maintaining, you know, 40 plus buildings like this building, 18-story office buildings, or the stadium project going on, uh the small highway districts, the sewer districts, all those buildings kind of fall under our our our um expertise in management. And there's always an issue.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, while I was looking at the statistics, uh this county executive, we have I get to oversee a big budget, uh$2 billion in total, with the vast majority of it being being health and human service related. But the Department of Public Works is one of the largest ones. The budget for public works this year is$128 million. And you're right, it's a little less than$400 staff, and it's it's kind of equally divided between the Division of Highways and the Buildings and Grounds Division, but then you have fleet services, utilities funds, administration. Uh and what was interesting is you talked about uh our road inventory being greater than three states. Uh yeah, the states of Hawaii, Rhode Island, uh, and uh what's the third one? Delaware. Delaware. Delaware have actually uh less lane miles than we have in Erie County. Uh and it makes it difficult because everybody wants their road fixed as of yesterday. And when you have, as you said, more than 2,000 lane miles of roads, inevitably there's going to be a little repair that needs to be done across the county. Uh, but so tell us when it we're talking about roads, we'll get into buildings and grounds and some of the other stuff a little later, including the work that you've helped had to do for the construction of the new Buffalo Bill Stadium. But when it comes to roads, uh, and you have so many miles of roads, how do you how does the department make a determination as to we're gonna fix this one over another one?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, that's always a great question and for the public. Uh, we have the another huge acronym, GBNRTC, Greater Buffalo, Niagara Region Traffic Council, uh, like to define those uh acronyms. But that's the uh uh metropolitan planning organization that really all our federal funding uh for this part, the western part of the state, comes to. And they also road score all our roads uh every two years, every odd year. And the first uh blush at any any project that we're doing is we want to identify roads that are they're scored on a one to ten, one being the worst, ten being the best uh a road could be in. So we identify those roads that are usually at a low seven and and into the fives. Once we get below five, we have to get into total reconstruction. More than likely, we can't just do a three-inch millinfill where we take three inches of the current road surface out, mill it up, and we can use fifty percent of that product so it's a recycled product, the road, and then pave it back down with uh new wearing surface.
SPEAKER_01So, what does that cost per mile?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so uh the mill and fill for a three-inch mill infill right now is probably anywhere from 500,000 in the rural and could be up near a million dollars in an urban section. Uh, and that's and those roads can only be done that way if they have a good base, uh, some of the drainage. Once we get drainage, which is one of the most important things for a road, we want the water off the road, obviously, so we don't go through those freeze thaw cycles that New York State's probably second in the country behind Pennsylvania with having the most uh freeze thaw cycles. And that you know, that constant flexing and expansion is what destroys the road. You get the potholes, deflections. But uh mill and fills somewhere between 500 and a million dollars a mile. Uh total reconstruction, that gets into 600,000 or$6 million and on up. Uh$6 million a mile. A mile. One mile road, two lanes, two drive lanes. Um it gets even higher when we have a lot of utilities in our road. That's where the right of the public right-of-way is. We have to manage that public right-of-way. So we have storm sewers, we have sanitary sewers, water lines, gas line. Now we have a lot of fiber optic going in. That's now part of the public utility system. Uh so anytime one of those sanitary sewers, you see water main brakes, they they blow apart the road. Uh so that's goes back to the equation on how we get to determine which roads are done, is those utilities which we don't own or manage, they're just in our right-of-way. Uh so Erie County Water Authority, for example, they may have had a line that had a bunch of brakes in it. We had that not too long ago of Abbott Road through the city of Lackawanna. So it moved that road up higher, uh, getting getting done because that's a four-lane road, and they were gonna pay for two, so the county does the other two uh where the water line isn't, and it may have leapfrogged ahead of uh another project just because we you know take advantage of those partnerships with the utility companies.
SPEAKER_01And when we make a determination like we're gonna construct this road over another one, there is the road score, but then there's traffic counts.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Uh so that's the third criteria that goes in there. Uh we have traffic counts, daily traffic counts, so vehicles traveled over a road. Uh the county of Erie has a cul-de-sac, believe it or not, up in Alden, a home road. So there's maybe 20 houses on that road, and you can imagine the traffic counts probably two trips for every driver in that household. So we're somewhere about a hundred cars a day on that road. Um a road that has a hundred cars, just light duty cars, and maybe one or two deliveries a month, um, you know, is not gonna degrade or deteriorate as fast as uh, let's say um Ridge Road in West Seneca or Maple Road up in Amherst. Maple probably being the best example because it's one of our highest at 30,000 cars a day. It's the doorstep to SUNY University, you know, the flagship university for state of New York. Uh, but all those vehicles going over it, all that trade, you know, economic commerce, because that's what county roads were typically set up to do, is connect all those towns and villages together to get supplies to the markets. So we have a lot of commercial traffic, and sometimes those overweighted vehicles or heavier trucks, multiple axles, then we'll see those roads deteriorate at a faster rate. We typically have um a rule of thought that a a road should last about five uh five years for just three to five years for a surface treatment. And that could be like sealing your driveway. We call it oil and chip. Uh, there's others now that aren't as uh aggressive with stones coming off. We put some sand in there. That's about, you know, like your driveway, like I said, we're putting traffic on it. So that's three to five years. That mill and fill, that three-inch millin fill, gets us supposed to be 10 to 15 years, but again, traffic volumes play into that and that deterioration. And then ultimately the reconstruction where we're totally rebuilding the whole road, the subgrade, and some of the utilities in it, the storm sewer, that should get us about 20 to 25 years. But what we're seeing now with the extreme weather events we're having, these real deep, impactful um thaws and freezes. This year we had a significant freeze for about 10 days. Uh I think we saw the frost line get down as almost 24 inches. Uh typical years, it's been uh it's been maybe in the 10, 8 to 10 inch range. But those weather events and that water getting in and out, freezing, expanding, contracting are deteriorating the roads faster as well.
SPEAKER_01This reminds me of a conversation I had with somebody a few months ago who lived down in Florida during the winter and said, you know, I'm gonna go down to Florida, talk to him in the fall. And he says, And the roads are gonna be in great shape. Why can't our roads be like Florida's? I go, well, uh as soon, maybe climate change will affect it in the long run because until we no longer have the freeze thaws, which they do not have in Florida, we're gonna have issues with potholes and repairing roads. And I think people sometimes forget that as they go, oh, your government has to spend so much money on roads more than other governments. I go, well, that may be true, but we also have weather conditions that they don't. So it's something that we have to constantly invest in. And a good example of the reconstruction, if you live in Erie County, is we did a massive reconstruction, which we're just finishing up on Borden Road in Chictawaga and Lisa Abbott Road. When we're talking five, six million dollars for just one mile of road, plus you're rebuilding it, you're putting in new drainage. Uh it it's it makes it difficult to do as many roads as you want when you have to invest that kind of dollars in just one or two projects.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Yeah. I mean, when we have so when we talk about 2,600 lane miles, we really like to hit um, you know, every 10 years hitting every road at least once somehow. I mean, that's a huge budget. So we can't always do the total reconstructions, and that's why those partnerships with utilities trying to leverage federal aid, uh, the counties, a lot of times, because of the state of New York, federal aid has to come through the state. And this is one of the things we've been championing as is my other role as president of the highway superintendent association of counties and towns working together, is that federal aid goes to the state. Well, obviously, the state, you know, they they manage that pot of money. It would be much more effective if it came right to us. We could get the projects out on the road faster. We could it would be uh less time and we can expand some of these projects.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're we're actually uh benefiting from the uh the federal bipartisan infrastructure bill that was passed in the Biden administration. They're providing more money to the states, and we're able to do more projects as a result of that. But the problem is there's basically another year delay because the money has to go to the federal the states and then the states will release it to the local governments. Uh I want to ask you a question about something that's a hot topic right now, which is the price of gasoline and the price of oil. Do you worry about the price of oil and gasoline as the the Commissioner of Public Works?
SPEAKER_00100%. Every day I um I never really thought I was gonna be in the commodities market, but uh since joining Public Works, I watch uh electric rates just like I watch the oil rates. And uh this morning I woke up to um the index is uh we have an index the uh New York State DOT follows uh an index that basically gives for volatile um products like petroleum, and asphalt's probably six to seven percent petroleum based. We use an index so uh yesterday, for example, it was six hundred and thirty-six dollars a ton for liquid asphalt. This morning, uh seven hundred and thirty-six dollars. So it's a hundred dollar increase. It doesn't necessarily translate a hundred dollars to a uh a ton of asphalt, but yesterday that ton of asphalt that we would have bought hot mix to fill potholes was roughly seventy-five dollars. Today, it's up to eighty-four dollars.
SPEAKER_01And when you're talking about having to buy tons and tons across Siri County, that can build up very quickly.
SPEAKER_00Correct, yeah. So like the um average that I use for like a three-inch millon fills could be about three thousand tons of asphalt. So that just added twenty-five thousand dollars to that project. So, what do we do in that case? You know, we've we've got a list of roads where we said we're gonna go out and do. Um, we do build in a contingency in all our projects, just for specifically uh asphalt adjustments, because typically it goes up and goes down. But by way of example, last year the index only varied maybe five to ten dollars. So it was like six thirty-eight and we go up to four six forty-three. A hundred dollar jump within one day, obviously, with current events going on and what's happening with the Strait of Hormuz, uh, that that's a hundred dollars. That's just for April. Um, if things don't change over there, I fully anticipate May to be the same thing. We may get to a point where we may have to delay a project. We may may not have enough money to buy all that asphalt because it's going to eat away at it.
SPEAKER_01Or we just reduce the number of projects that we can do.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Or the amount of mileage that we do, you know. Um, like I said, we always try to get to that hundred-mile, you know, range, uh, but we may have to reduce that mileage.
SPEAKER_01Speaking of commodities, because uh you talked about the price of oil, but also electricity. And your role as the commissioner of public works is not just for highways, but buildings and grounds. So as part of that, it means that you've got to pay for heating and cooling and maintaining all of our buildings, which there are hundreds of county buildings. People may think of uh just a few of them off the top of their head, but there are hundreds of them. Correct. And when the price of oil goes up, it affects the price of electricity often because of uh the costs associated with uh including natural gas, where a lot of electricity is built. But so what's uh and you've seen the increases with regards to electricity, what's that impacting our county uh finances?
SPEAKER_00That's uh another one. So our electric bill for the month of February was just over five million dollars. Do you think your electric bill is expensive? Ours was five million dollars. And what would it have been in prior years? Uh so the year prior was about 2.3 million. Yeah. And and again, that we uh the cold weather, it's harder to extract natural gas. Uh the state of New York's been phasing out a lot of coal and oil burning power plants. Uh, I think there's only a few left in New York City area. But for the most part, a lot of our uh electric, you know, is generated using natural gas generation. There is uh stuff up here in Niagara Falls with the Power Authority with hydro, and there's quite a bit of hydro. And then we have the renewables in the market, but we buy um not just for Erie County, the utility aggregate that I manage also buys for a couple of the western New York, like Cataragas County, Chautauqua County, uh the a lot of the authorities, so this uh Erie County Sewer Authority, Water Authority, some of the county. Well, we manage that consortium. We manage, yeah, we manage that consortium and we buy right off. We're an independent operator on the New York State Um independent operator exchange. So we sit right next to National Grid, NYSEG, and we buy the same power. The advantage we have is we can keep our rates at about 20 cents a kilowatt for um a one kilowatt of energy, where nice and national grid have other costs in their marketing and a lot more overhead. So we save a lot of our government partners and most all the towns now, as we've been getting that out. We did a big push the last couple of years letting them know we can do that. There's still a few legacy towns in uh the county that buy directly off the market and are paying a lot of money that they don't have to. But um, those rates are, you know, we're saving almost seven to ten cents a kilowatt hour by us buying that power for them.
SPEAKER_01So we're we're we're basically like a small state in another way because we're a small state with regards to the size of the county, our road infrastructure, but then we're buying and managing the electricity purchases for not just ourselves but others. And what I find interesting is you talk about how you buy it right alongside the two major uh electrical companies in our area, uh National Grid and New York State Electric and Gas. So they're buying off of the same amount amount, and they're basically purchasing it for a very similar price as what we are.
SPEAKER_00They are, yeah, and then they mark that up as well, though, because they add in um, you know, like they're they have their cost, you know, the coexist, their their labor force is much higher. Um they have we all pay the delivery because your electric bill is broken up two sides it's a supply side and a delivery. We're buying the supply, but we're using their wires and transformers to deliver it, which every uh every entity is doing that. Uh, and that's where everybody, I think, now in the last since 2023, Public Service Commission got um uh raised for the utilities to bump up on the delivery side to put that money back into our grid because our grid, believe it or not, the state of New York can only produce like 39 gigawatts of power. It's all it can really saturately use. It sounds like a lot. Sounds like a lot. But when you have big companies like Micron coming into Syracuse and they need a gigawatt just for themselves, you know, we're we're mark we we have to increase our grid capacity to allow for more economic development, but also in our houses, you know, the way as we transition off of some of these legacy natural gas and uh other sources to more electric and have that resiliency or that long term you know security that it's gonna be there and be accurate, uh we need Upgrades in our system.
SPEAKER_01It's an interesting point you brought up with regards to the usage of electricity. I'm not a big fan of data centers. They don't create many jobs, but they suck a tremendous amount of electricity and use water because they need to be cooled. And it's one of the reasons why Erie County has not been as receptive as data centers. And you're seeing a rebellion in the counties where they have a lot of data centers because it's driving up their electricity costs. And I think the last thing we need at a time when electricity costs are high as it is, is to have less electricity available, meaning everyone else has to pay more for it. Just a reminder, everybody, this is On the Mark, uh, a discussion dedicated to local, state, and national issues affecting government and its bosses, the people. I'm your host, Erie County Executive Mark Pollenkars, and I am pleased to be joined by our Department of Public Works Commissioner for Erie County, Bill Geary. Now, as we were talking about, he's got the position with regards to uh running the highway division uh and the buildings and grounds division. It's a it's a bigger division than most people think, and it has a lot of maintenance costs that unfortunately are growing. So what's the biggest headache dealing with buildings and grounds?
SPEAKER_00So the biggest uh that's a that's a great point, Mark, because uh we have you mentioned it a little bit, we have 40 main buildings. These are office buildings, court buildings, the holding center correctional facility. We have really an inventory of over 200. When you figure in some of the outlying buildings in all our parks, uh and they may not be utilized as often as people think, or they don't even think about it until they walk in it. But building envelope, you know, making sure the buildings uh we've we've got an inventory of buildings that date back uh you know turn of the 20th century with the botanical gardens. So a lot of people don't realize that's a county building. Uh it's one of the only buildings like that this side of the Mississippi, and there may only be one or two in the entire country. Uh it's a national treasure. Uh but we also have, you know, old county hall that's been around since the late and 19th century, you know, 1836, 1846. And we have the oldest office building uh in the city of Buffalo, you know, with our newly reminted Lincoln building, uh, President Lincoln, John Quincy Adams. I mean, there's host of celebrities that have been in that place when it uh it really started out as I think a church. Church. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Abraham Lincoln attended a mass there and was invited uh by the at that time uh former President Millard Fillmore.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Yeah. Benjamin Rathburn is the architect of that building. Uh he was um he was like uh coming to America, the guy had his own money, I think. You know, like he's he was a shooter for sure.
SPEAKER_01We might have to do a uh a podcast on him because he has a very interesting background and it didn't end well.
SPEAKER_00No, no, it sure didn't, but it's the last Benjamin Rathburn building in the city. So yeah, getting in these buildings are tough to maintain. Uh we're uh we're dealing with shippo in a lot of cases, or uh some sort of you know, trying to keep everything the way it was intended when those buildings were built, uh meeting newer standards with electrical. We're doing a huge project right now in the Wrath building, for instance. Uh, and Mark, you're well aware of this. With we've had to do a couple power shutdowns. The in the electronic gear that's in there for all the power coming in uh has to be replaced. It was from the 60s. Uh it's outdated, it's uh in jeopardy of causing fires. And uh it's been all together, it's probably a$10 million project, but we're also um building in some stuff here with the county that'll make uh Erie County one of the first in the country to be a microgrid uh where we can be self-sufficient with power in the in the event that the grid does go down for an extended period of time or at all. Uh but also that gives us some benefits from the power companies because during peak demand, we can bring in uh power that's here locally generated and let that other one gigawatt of power that our uh megawatt of power, I'm sorry, that this building would use be used in the grid, uh especially in high peak in the summers as we're seeing hotter summers.
SPEAKER_01So we're becoming more resilient in our energy usage.
SPEAKER_00We are, and we've invested uh tens of millions of dollars through energy performance contracts replacing windows. You know, you go uh by the city of Buffalo, you go by City Hall and you see those window shakers, we call them the air conditioners. We had a bunch of those. We had 120, 134 West Eagle was filled with them. Uh we removed all the windows, we put in new HVAC systems, but that all came at a cost. You know, like I said, we're over$10 million in our EPC, but we were able to um EPC being energy performance. Yes. Correct. Yeah, we we save just in lighting, for instance, was like a million dollars uh to reduce all the lighting back to LEDs. And it's not as simple as just removing a bulb. I wish a lot of times it was just a plug and play, but we have to replace some of the switches and some of the ballasts. But we also got incentives from the electric company, from NYCERTA, from the vendors. Uh so that million dollars, we probably got about um$150,000 to$200,000 in rebates back, but we also lowered our energy cost by about the same, about$200,000. So it has a long-term payoff.
SPEAKER_01Um speaking of long-term payoffs, we the county has been involved in an investment that has a long-term payoff, which is keeping of the Buffalo Bills. And you've been intimately involved in the construction of the new stadium on behalf of Verie County. The county currently owns it, but we won't own it once it opens. We're transferring it over to the state. But tell me what it's like to have been involved in a project that is building a what really is something that the people that are Buffalo Bills fans will be enjoying for decades to come. But it's a two billion dollar plus construction project of what's it been like working on it?
SPEAKER_00Uh that's uh probably 90% of my day, and add in the other hundred percent of normal duties. Uh, but it's it's 100% the a great experience. You know, I don't know. This is a generational project. I don't know too many counties that are doing a$2 billion project or a part of a$2 billion.
SPEAKER_01Not many.
SPEAKER_00Um unless you have an NFL stadium, which is very few in the in the country. Uh a lot of learning, a lot of you know, just doing something on that big a scale, and then seeing it come from our land acquisition, you know, there's so much that goes into that project before a shovel even hits the ground. And I think for the most part, that's what people don't even realize. You know, we're we had uh the old stadium across the street, so we always had yearly discussions, but to get up to the point where we had to really build a new stadium and how how it was targeted where the land was, how COVID affected all those decisions. I mean, there was a lot in that matrix, and there was a lot of learning that went through that too. Just you know, it's not as simple as just plugging a stadium in one parcel. You know, you gotta make sure your utilities can handle that, the sanitary sewer systems, neighborhoods, the streets, the roadways. So um, yeah, that was it's still a great project to be a part of. It's frustrating at times doing a lot of I do the monthly bills, so I pay out the$70 to$80 million a month to make sure all the workers are paid, the suppliers are paid, uh, work directly with our counterparts from the Buffalo Bills in New York State.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you you brought up something like just to make sure the sanitary sewers work. Most people don't think about that, but we we run a sewer division in Erie County, and we were actually doing a big project at that sewer location in in Hamburg, New York, uh Woodlawn area, just to make certain it can handle the flow from the new stadium. Most people don't care about sewers until the you know what hits the fan. And when it does, then they really do worry about it. Um we're almost complete with this football stadium.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01And as you look back on your your career, will this be one of those legacy projects that you look and say, wow, I was part of something that people generations to come will enjoy?
SPEAKER_00There they will be because that's you know, that's one of those um monumental that you can point to. But I think too, like in public works, there's so many other things that directly affected the public, like every snowstorm, some of the floods, you know, where we were actually able to get out on the streets and help people in those FEMA events, or maybe not FEMA events, but you know, natural disasters or plane crashes, even um, those will probably be a little bit higher of a hallmark than building that stadium.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, one of the things that is uh we deal with in this community is bad weather, but we've had to unfortunately deal with some very bad events that our Department of Public Works is pretty much involved. If it affects our community, whether it was the mass shooting at the top supermarket, snowstorms, the the unfortunate uh crash of Colgan Air and Clarence, our Department of Public Works was involved in some way possible.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Yeah, it was uh I remember you know going back to February of uh oh nine, that was probably one of my first projects, you know. Unfortunately, we were plowing that day and it was pretty close to where I was district engineer. Um, but you know, going through that whole uh with the community, those families. That was the plane crash in clearance. That was the plane crash in Clarence, yes. And then you know, moving on, you know, we had floods in uh Gwanda. Yeah, I remember we had come through and unfortunately that we lost life down there. But then, you know, this the snowstorms, we had some smaller plane crashes, incidents up in Lancaster. Yeah, it's it's amazing when we onboard an employee, you know, it's not just you're gonna be working in highways filling potholes or paving streets or in in the raft building cleaning, uh the court buildings. You're you're you're really you're there, man. We're the uh unfortunately at the tip of the spear for a lot of those things, but that's one of the great things working in this public service, and um that's where I I've really channeled my energies was public service uh because you can affect not just one life but multiple lives.
SPEAKER_01It's one of the great things about uh these positions. I practice law before I entered public service, and I could still be practicing law making lots more money, but I'd only be helping a few clients out at a time, is where you in these positions you can help out hundreds of thousands of people, especially in a natural disaster like a snowstorm. Uh now Bill's often in the emergency services operations center with me and the others, uh trying to get people get us through a snowstorm. And I know it aggravates all of us when we uh plow a road, we get it clear, and then someone who's not supposed to be on the road gets stuck and it shuts it back down. Correct. It's one of our problems. But uh if if if people just listens to our recommendations, how much easier would your job be?
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well, uh it's not even just the job would be easier, but the event would be shorter. You know, so instead of having uh, you know, we could be in and out of something in 12 hours because everybody's level of expectations now is you know, you get seven, eight feet of snow, and unfortunately, sometimes our crews they do too good of a job and they get you know the roads back open so quickly that people just think that that rhythm happens all the time. Uh unfortunately, in you know, blizzard events when you're dealing with hurricane force winds for three days, um, it does take some time. And and again, it's it's not just getting the road back open, but it's those men and women also that go out there to do those rescues because of the you're stuck, uh you're not prepared, you you know, you're stuck in a car and you got shorts and flip-flops on.
SPEAKER_01Um, you know, that's that's real things when we've uh we've rescued people during the blizzards wearing shorts and flip-flops. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But we're trying to get those trucks to market. You know, we want to get you know the grocery stores resupplied, the the gas stations open with so people can go about their business. But it is, it's great. I I get to be the mouthpiece for those 400 plus employees, and every day, man, they just amaze me the amount of work they do, and I I really thank them for that.
SPEAKER_01We have a great team in county government, they make us look good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I want to finish with a question about the the work that you're doing for the New York State County Highway Superintendent Association as its president. What is it what's involved with that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh that's it's a great opportunity. There's uh 61 counties in the state of New York. Um usually the the boroughs in New York City don't um participate, but we usually have about 57. Uh and it's you know an urban large county like Erie County is second largest, I think, in the state. But then we have a lot of smaller rurals that, you know, like quite honestly, they have a workforce smaller than my highway department for their entire county. Uh so everybody's needs uh were are a little bit different, but a lot of things were aligned on, especially on the highway side, trying to get more funding from the state that could be used on our system because 87% of the roads in the state of New York are local roads, which means they're not expressways, they're not the I-90, they're not the 219, stuff like that. Uh they're the local roads that are either county or town roads, and they're the most uh probably important, the first and last mile. So it's really working with the state legislature on trying to increase funding, trying to make uh bidding laws the current, because a lot of our New York State uh general municipal law that we're guided by was written in the 40s, and there's dollar figures in there that are still referenced from the 40s. Uh as we see every day, everything gets a little more expensive. And um, it's it's just great to network across the state and know that we have a group of men and women that are we're all facing the same challenges, but in times of need, those people came up and helped us out during the blizzard. We've sent uh people across, you know, Niagara County, even downstate when the hurricane hit, Hurricane Sandy in New York City. So uh it's a lot easier to pick up the phone and call Mark that I I know and work with every day uh than just cold calling out of the blue.
SPEAKER_01Is there one thing that if you could snap your fingers for the superintendent's association to change in state law or state rules that you think would make a big difference, what would it be?
SPEAKER_00Uh I do actually, and I believe Governor Hokel I uh is trying to fast track you know some of these projects. And one of the impediments for us on the public side, I believe, is general municipal law. Just having that with parity with New York State, because New York State has some opportunities through New York State finance law, which they're governed. Municipalities are under general municipal law. Um if we could have parity with the just general finance law, it would be bidding requirements, electronic bidding. You know, we're asking these contractors to come in and be an open bid. Uh when we have you know television, we could be doing it. So the state does it differently than the code. You could do elect, yeah, you could do electronic bidding, open bids, and then they don't have to leave their job site.
SPEAKER_01You know, so you heard that, Governor Hoke, as well as our friends in the assembly and Senate. Give us parity and and and we'll be able to do things faster and probably less expensive.
SPEAKER_00Less expensive, right. And then I mean ultimately there's workforce safety. We're aligned on that with the state. Uh we're really trying to get it through the assembly as you know, these work zones, men and women want to go home to their families, our staff, at the end of the day. We shouldn't have to relay bad news that someone may have been ultimately killed in a work zone, which happened with DOT last year. Yeah, it's happened on the throughway. Distracted drivers. So there's we need to we really need to hold people that are speeding through work zones or even worse, recklessly driving to a higher level and make it a felony. Um, and that's one of the biggest bills that we're championing across the board with New York State DOT, New York State Throughway, and the county and town highway superintendents.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you shouldn't have to worry about not coming home when you go to work because of the stupidity or the uh the actions of another. Uh we've been joined today by uh Bill Gary, the commissioner of the Department of Public Works. This is On the Mark, a discussion dedicated to local, state, and national issues affecting government and of course its bosses, the people. Uh Bill, it's been my pleasure to have you here. I hope you enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks, Mark. This was fun, man. I'd love to come back anytime.
SPEAKER_01Very good. Uh stay uh listen to for the next edition of On the Mark on anywhere where you can get a podcast. And uh appreciate everyone listening and take care.
