Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner has found a warmer reception to her request for funds to fix her city’s underground infrastructure.
Miner met with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) while she was in the capital for a conference. The mayor’s office says it was a productive meeting and the senator was understanding of her plight.
Syracuse dealt with a record number of water main breaks last year, 391. Miner says it will cost about$726 million to upgrade the system, parts of ehich are a century old.
Miner has repeatedly asked the state and Gov. Andrew Cuomo for help with that bill. But Cuomo has not been open to sending funds from Albany.
A spokesman for Schumer says they are interested in helping Syracuse find grants and matching federal funds to grow the pot of money available to install new pipes. Schumer has also spoken positively about bipartisan interest in increasing the amount of federal money available for such upgrades, possibly through the creation of an infrastructure bank.
