It’s a good thing the state Department of Transportation (DOT) finished reconstruction of the Wurts Street Bridge over Kingston’s Rondout Creek pretty much on time. Cost estimates keep rising.

According to the DOT, the original estimate for the 103-year-old bridge was in the $32 million range. At dedication ceremonies on Tuesday the published cost for completion was $44.6 million. Wednesday, the DOT confirmed that the final cost could approach $60 million.

The bridge was built over a three-year period in the early 1920s for $700,000. Adjusted for inflation, that figure today would be $37.7 million.

Two factors drove up the cost. First and foremost, DOT didn’t just replace a long-neglected bridge that had been literally falling into the Rondout Creek before it was shut down three years ago. DOT designed and built a brand-new bridge. Every one of thousands of bolts in the old bridge were replaced. Wider and safer, officials say it should last as long as its predecessor. With proper maintenance.

The old bridge was in such a state of advanced disrepair that it had to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Despite a DOT blackout on advance notice to the public, Tuesday’s “invitation-only” ribbon-cutting was attended by over 100 people. Most were invitees, including just about every elected Democrat in the county. And they all spoke. I spotted one Republican, County Legislator Herb Litts from Highland, but he may have been lost. Democrats do not invite Republicans to their “events,” even in this case where the facility was paid for by all stripes of taxpayers and was constructed for the public good. Back in the day when Republicans held all the cards, they were just as exclusionary.

DOT commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez served as master of ceremonies, but given the 91-degree heat, might have gone on a bit.

After generous introductions, local grandees waxed nostalgic. Former congressman Antonio Delgado, currently the state’s lieutenant governor, reminisced about proposing to his wife at a Rondout waterfront restaurant in sight of the bridge. His mother-in-law, who lives just across the creek in Port Ewen, was in the audience.

Delgado recognized former assemblymember Kevin Cahill, the main speaker, before he was formally introduced. “Kevin Cahill, this was your baby,” he said, to cheers from the crowd.

State Sen. Michelle Hinchey talked about the times her father Maurice would go out of the way to take his little daughter across the bridge.

Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha, who defeated Cahill in a Democratic primary two years ago, was not in attendance. She sent a representative.

Cahill’s remarks were unusually brief, by his standards. He began by correcting the historic record. Gov. Al Smith was there to set the cornerstone when construction on the bridge resumed after World War I. He was defeated for re-election later in 1920 by Nathan Miller, who cut the ribbon on the completed bridge.

“Al,” Cahill said, looking up at the sky, “I know how you feel.”

“This bridge holds a special place in the hearts of this community,” he said. “It is incomparable. They made it better than new.” As an example, this bridge carries a 20-ton weight limit, about 35 percent more than the old bridge.

Cahill also revealed another bit of history about the bridge. Shortly after the nearby Judge John T. Loughran bridge over the Rondout was opened in 1979, he said, DOT offered the Wurts Street Bridge to Kingston mayor Frank Koenig and Esopus supervisor Roger Mabie for a dollar. “There were no takers.”

Dump Here Never!

It’s been a good 40 years since the county’s failed effort to site a landfill the pristine meadowlands of Winston Farm west of Saugerties. Woodstock ’94 was held there.

For years I rode around in my convertible blasting the landfill foes’ theme song, “Dump, Dump the Megadump.” It had a good beat, and you could dance to it.

Currently shipping its garbage to a municipal landfill near the Finger Lakes, the county’s Resource Recovery Agency is now exploring two sites in the Town of Wawarsing near the Sullivan County border.

The much troubled and largely dysfunctional RRA has a new CEO in former deputy county executive Marc Rider. But it wasn’t after a consultant’s report recommending the sites landed on Rider’s desk that all hell broke loose in Wawarsing. Eight county legislators have signed a letter to the agency in opposition to the sites. Naturally, most come from that area. None will be re-elected should the RRA make a final decision in their bailiwick.

Regionalism will play a part in what will be an ugly mess. Signees accuse Kingston of generating most of the garbage that may be dumped in their backyards. Kingston accounts for less than 15 percent of the county’s overall population.

The bottom line, as it was all those years ago in Saugerties, is that nobody wants a dump in their area. It was acceptable when most towns had their own dumps; it was their garbage. Strange stuff is not welcome.

Rider, on the job for less than a year, seems to be an activist. He’s been handed a problem, and he aims to solve it. As a former assistant county executive, he’s no stranger to cut-throat politics.

But he’s never seen anything like this.

What a Revoltin’ Situation This Is

Somewhere in an undisclosed place, Ulster Town Supervisor Jim Quigley must be wondering how it all went so wrong so fast. If there are any mirrors wherever he is, they should be covered.

Last spring, Quigley seemed on the way to a comfortable retirement, revered by grateful townsfolk who elected and re-elected him over a 13-year career. Councilman Clayton Van Kleeck, his hand-picked successor, was in place to take over come Aug. 31.

But Quigley changed his mind. Not once, but perhaps twice. And it wasn’t the first time. Van Kleeck was out, Quigley was back. In fact, he never left.

At a special session of the board, councilmembers, absent the supervisor, voted 4-0 to take over administrative duties of the town.

Citing an archaic state law that provides that supervisors are only in charge of drawing up and administering the budget and presiding at town board meetings, the rogue board decided they’d run the town on a daily basis.

This will be government by committee and history is replete with its failures. The last example we had of this was in Ulster County government under the old executive legislature system. It went extinct, thankfully, with the dawn of the executive form of government in 2009.

Bringing Quigley back as boss of bosses doesn’t seem in the works, short-term. The alternative can’t be filling townsfolk with optimism, either.