{"id":102946,"date":"2019-04-24T15:04:10","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T19:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=102946"},"modified":"2019-04-24T10:49:07","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T14:49:07","slug":"letter-supports-i-81-solution-that-benefits-entire-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=102946","title":{"rendered":"LETTER: Supports I-81 solution that benefits entire community"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To the Editor:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Interstate 81 serves as a vital backbone for the economy of\nOnondaga County and, for decades, it has been an economic driver\nfor the many towns and businesses that have grown around\nit. Recently, representatives of 11 hotels located along Interstate 81\nsent a letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo expressing our concerns about what a\ngrid-only solution would mean for the economic stability of the town of Salina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hotels on our exit generate\nmillions of dollars annually in school, county and state sales taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up to 30 percent of our customers don\u2019t make reservations\nahead of time, choosing instead to stop at a convenient location while\ntraveling. Re-routing traffic to I-481 would drive customers away from these\nhotels and other business on the exit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would result in layoffs and a reduction in taxes that\ngo to the schools and the county; a school district with less funding will be\nless desirable and impact home values of all residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\n(if not all) of the communities surrounding the city are also against a\ngrid-only solution. Syracuse has approximately 150,000 residents while Onondaga\nCounty has more than 460,000 residents. We cannot allow to the preference of\nthe minority to usurp the needs of the majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nare grateful for the governor\u2019s past support and investment in our communities.\nWe urge Governor Cuomo and the NYS Department of Transportation to choose a\nhybrid solution that benefits our entire community, or, at the very least, one\nthat meets the needs of the majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viraj Patel, Liverpool<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To the Editor: Interstate 81 serves as a vital backbone for the economy of Onondaga County and, for decades, it has been an economic driver for the many towns and businesses that have grown around it. Recently, representatives of 11 hotels located along Interstate 81 sent a letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo expressing our concerns about what a grid-only solution would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23678,23808,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letterstotheeditor","category-opinion","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-qMq","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/opinion_letters1.jpg?fit=570%2C300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=102946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=102946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}