Some Bonds Are More Equal Than Others

Editor’s Note: Alison Biddle is a candidate for the Lewisboro Town Board. All candidates on the ballot for Town Board are invited to send columns to this newspaper. Send them to opinion@halstonmedia.com. Please keep to a 1,000-word limit.

I’m a mom with two young children, so bike paths and sidewalks are often helpful to me and my family.

The Lewisboro Town Board’s proposed $2.1 million bond issue, which will be on this year’s general election ballot in Lewisboro, isn’t the worst idea in the world. It would build sidewalks and bike paths.

Just not enough of them to go around.

Going $2 million into debt (that’s what a bond issue is asking you to do) for a mile or so of bike lanes and sidewalks doesn’t get you far when you live in a town with more than 85 miles of road.

And the bond issue doesn’t offer any maps or street-by-street breakdowns of where the new bike lanes and sidewalks will be built. I guess that means the Town Board gets to bestow most favored nation status on one or maybe two of the six hamlets that make up Lewisboro.

It also fails to account for upkeep: repairing potholes and sidewalk cracks doesn’t come cheap these days. If we pass a bond to build these amenities, we also agree to pay for their repair on our own, a couple of winters from now.

And there is the issue of urgency.

Supporters of this bond talk like there is some enormous, compelling need to pass the bond now, and build these bike lanes and sidewalks immediately. Like, before the town’s master plan is revealed early next year. The master plan is a comprehensive, decades-long blueprint for Lewisboro’s infrastructure, which includes bike lanes and new sidewalks.

But something out there compels our neighbors to build certain bike lanes and sidewalks now. Before the master plan. Before anything, really.

I don’t get it. Besides not offering us maps and any kind of detail, bond supporters want to supersede the real plan to upgrade our town. Is there a sale on cement and asphalt we overlooked? Is the fix in to build somewhere that benefits a politician or his/her major contributor? 

I like bike lanes and sidewalks. They make a day out with my kids easier and more manageable. 

But I like knowing all the facts before going into debt to spend $2.1 million (probably $4 million when the inevitable cost overruns and unforeseen delays kick in). A map would be nice. A few details, too.

You know what I also like?

Parks and playgrounds. 

It also would be nice for Lewisboro seniors to have a dedicated senior center in town. A place they can use. 

A few years ago, when some of us asked for a new playground, the Town Board didn’t say it was urgent. They didn’t put a bond on the ballot to pay for one.

Instead, the Town Board told people that if they wanted a playground, they ought to go out and raise private funds to pay for it.

So we did. And that’s how the new playground at Lewisboro Town Park got built.

I guess some bonds are more equal – and more urgent – than others.

I just wish the Town Board considered public safety (our police don’t have working radios), our main and secondary roads, our seniors and our parks and playgrounds as important as a small patch of bike lanes and sidewalks to benefit a select few, who may or may not be political donors (we won’t know until they release a map, and that won’t happen until voters approve the $2.1 million bond).

Alison Biddle is a candidate for Lewisboro Town Council. She attended Boston University and SUNY Albany, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and applied mathematics. She worked in financial software on Wall Street, and is Global Senior Enterprise Account Manager for Fusion Risk Management. She and her husband have been Lewisboro residents since 2005.