Rockland Responds: Town of Ramapo Supervisor Michael Specht Responds to Question About Ramapo's Goals for 2024

Hi, 

There have been a lot of incredible changes in Ramapo over the past year. 

What are Ramapo's goals for 2024 so we can know what we have to look forward to? 

Thanks, 

Rockland Resident

Dear Resident,

Our goals for 2024 include numerous projects that will improve safety and the quality of life for our residents. 

We will continue to install sidewalks throughout unincorporated Ramapo so people can walk safely day or night. We will complete the sidewalk on Carlton Road and numerous other high-demand locations, financing the construction with municipal bonds and grant money.

Our street light program is moving along even better than we had hoped last year. We announced last year that we planned to add a total of 1500 new lights to our already existing stock of 1800 lights, improving safety and visibility for drivers and pedestrians. We are actually increasing that for a total of 2000 new streetlights, 1200 of which have been installed since last year, and 800, which will be completed within 2024.  We are also buying from Orange & Rockland the remaining 500 lights that were connected by underground wiring and will operate those as well, allowing us to upgrade them to the new LED smart lights for greater safety.

Plan to see new and improved parks and playgrounds in 2024. In 2023, we completed the total overhaul and upgrade of Sandy Brook Park by meeting with the residents who live near and use that park to find out what they wanted to have built there. We will work on enhancing additional neighborhood parks, including Harry Reiss Park on Blauvelt Road and others, by working together with our residents to create playgrounds and parks that families will truly enjoy. We will also work on expanding and improving our large parks, such as Weldler Park, where we added a state-of-the-art inclusive playground in 2022. That playground has been such a success that we are looking to add more in Welder and other locations. We will also be adding pickleball courts throughout the Town to meet the rapidly growing popularity of that sport among our residents.     

We will continue to make improvements, big and small, to our roads to enhance smoother traffic flow and safety for drivers and pedestrians, including turning lanes, stacking lanes, additional and improved traffic lights and signs where needed. We are working cooperatively with the New York State Department of Transportation to facilitate improvements to State highways within the Town, such as Route 59, Route 45, and Route 306, which affect our residents each day.

Standard & Poors recently upgraded our bond rating to strong AA- levels, which allows us to issue municipal bonds to finance infrastructure and improvements at very competitive interest rates to the benefit of our taxpayers. Standard & Poors cited the Town’s greatly improved finances, budgetary performance, and solid, growing tax base over the past several years as grounds for raising our rating. 

 Michael Specht, Town of Ramapo Supervisor

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