Town of Tonawanda Highway Superintendent
‘Experience’ claims drive highway chief campaigns in Town of Tonawanda
Rowles, Crangle vie for Tonawanda post
Published: October 30, 2009, 3:59 pm
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Both candidates are touting experience in the campaign for highway superintendent in the Town of Tonawanda.
Voters will decide Tuesday what kind of experience makes a good highway superintendent.
Bradley A. Rowles, who has held the position since August 2003, points to more than three decades in the town’s Highway Department and its response under his leadership during the infamous October storm of 2006.
Councilman Daniel J. Crangle, the challenger, reminds residents of his accomplishments as a Town Board member whose efforts can be seen in everything from senior citizens housing projects to a veterans memorial.
Rowles is running as the candidate of the Republican, Conservative, Independence and Tonawanda First parties; Crangle is the nominee of the Democratic and Working Families parties.
The superintendent’s job encompasses highway, sanitation-recycling and forestry operations, and involves overseeing more than 100 employees and an annual budget that now exceeds $10 million. This year, the job paid $87,074.
Rowles got his experience on the
job, beginning soon after the Blizzard of ’77, when he volunteered to shovel out fire hydrants and fill sandbags.
Over the years, he worked through the ranks and was named superintendent in 2003 to fill a vacancy. He fended off a challenger in the 2003 elections and was uncontested in 2005.
“I can drive anything here. I can fix anything here,” Rowles said. “You need a strong leader and an educated leader. But you also need a leader . . . in this particular job, that has experience in the department.”
Crangle has experience in other areas.
Professionally, he has worked as a firefighter for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority for 28 years and is a part-time school bus driver.
As a councilman, his name is linked with the town’s Youth, Parks & Recreation Department and the projects he champions as chairman of the Town Board’s Youth, Parks and Recreation, and Senior Citizens committees.
They have included senior housing projects, upgraded athletic facilities at Kenney Field, a new office building for the department in Lincoln Park and the town’s Veterans Memorial, a privately funded project for which Crangle was co-chairman.
“When I walked down with [former Secretary of State] Colin Powell and I saw all those seniors, I will remember that the rest of my life,” Crangle said.
“What I have to offer . . . is my leadership. I believe in getting things done,” Crangle said.
Rowles says the October 2006 storm has provided the high and low points of his time in office.
As broken tree limbs clogged the streets during the storm, Rowles said, crews were forced to wait for utility workers to deal with live wires before debris could be removed.
“We opened up every road we could that wasn’t blocked,” Rowles said. By the next night, at least a single lane was passable on streets townwide.
Crangle downplays Rowles’ background.
“The background education he’s receiving now is on-the-job training,” Crangle said. “Those are all things that I would receive once elected.”
Rowles actually has moved beyond “student” in two organizations that Crangle cites: Cornell University’s Local Roads Program, at which Rowles was a panelist-trainer this year, and the Northwest Solid Waste Management Board, of which he is chairman.
Rowles said he used the combined power of the board’s six member-communities to negotiate more than $2 million in savings for the town’s solid waste disposal contracts.
“All told, you could probably say that was $4 [million] to 5 million that I saved these towns in northern Erie County,” he said.
Earlier this year, the town’s recycling program received a state grant of almost $432,000 that helped pay for purchases made between 1996 and 2008. Curbside recycling generates almost $100,000 in revenue annually.
Yet Crangle says he sees room for improvement in recycling.
“One of the biggest areas where we can increase revenue is recycling,” he said. “The thing that’s never been talked about is the businesses.”
Crangle faults the Highway Department on planning — on equipment, among other things — while admitting he doesn’t have a plan to offer.
“I have to see how the department is structured and then sit down with the comptroller,” Crangle said.
Rowles, meanwhile, says money saved in a capital fund is used for big-ticket equipment purchases. He keeps data on the the projected life and wear of equipment, and said he orders pieces with compatible parts that can be swapped if there’s a breakdown.
“My fleet is interchangeable. It’s through my education and experience that I have been able to do that,” Rowles said.
jhabuda@buffnews.com
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