I was reading a recent copy of the Oyster Bay Enterprise-Pilot and came across your article covering the massive utility poles that have gone up in Port Washington. Having a vested interest as an Oyster Bay Cove resident, I am clearly concerned that we express our strong desire to not have PSEG-LI put up any of these utility poles in our village. Furthermore, as a recently appointed director on the board of the Oyster Bay Main Street Association, I feel any such developments would undermine our mission to revitalize and redevelop our downtown. I believe it to be my civic duty to reach out to PSEG-LI and start discussions to figure out how best to approach the topic of utility poles in general in the Hamlet of Oyster Bay.
As you may well know, our downtown is already marred with innumerable above-ground electric, cable and telephone wires. This problem is especially an eyesore at the intersection of South Street and West Main Street. This, of course, is just the tip of the problem, but I also wish to discuss potential solutions with PSEG-LI and see if there is any way for us residents to encourage the electric utility to go the route of burying our power lines instead of putting reinforced utility poles up in our neighborhoods. I would surely think that our residents would love for the Hamlet of Oyster Bay to be a test case for proving out whether to pursue a larger project to bury power lines all over Long Island.
I would love to open the forum for discussion as soon as possible through the right channels at both PSEG-LI and the Town of Oyster Bay officials who would interface with them.
Alex Urdea
