Carl sent me the second FOIL request a couple weeks ago, I have it and hopefully over the weekend I will scan the whole document and create another page for this in noGItolls.com….

I truly want to Thank Carl for joining us in this fight to rid WNY of yet another obstacle on our road to fiscal stability, economic growth and trying to remove the stranglehold Albany has on all of us.

Fight to Remove Grand Island Tolls

(Grand Island, NY, May 31, 2007) - - A push is growing to eliminate tolls at the Grand Island bridges. A News 4 investigation has uncovered what drivers are really paying for. Here’s Ellen Maxwell.

Developer Carl Paladino recently joined the fight to remove the Grand Island tolls. He did some research through the Freedom of Information Act, and sent a letter to Governor Eliot Spitzer.

Ellicott Development CEO Carl Paladino said, “Enough is enough. Where’s the fairness here? I don’t care if it’s nine cents a trip for a Grand Island resident. It’s still an unfair tax.”

Paladino discovered that last year alone, drivers paid more than twenty million dollars in tolls at the Grand Island bridges.

Operational costs only came to 10.6 million, leaving the Thruway Authority with a ten million dollar profit.

Where’s the money going?

Toll collectors are paid twenty dollars an hour, or more. The Thruway Authority will pick up ninety percent of the tab for them to go to a college of their choice.

After five years of work, every employee gets a free easy pass for life for their personal car.

Rus Thompson tried to put up a billboard, directing people to a web site petition to take down the tolls. But the billboard companies told him it wouldn’t work out.

Grand Island resident Rus Thompson said, “He said if he put that up on the billboards, the Thruway Authority would be all over him. So he’s afraid of the repercussions of the Thruway Authority.”