“Only in New York can you use taxpayer money in plain sight to fund illegal activities and no one bats an eye. This is a clear and reckless abuse of taxpayer-funded resources. These signs were deemed illegal by the federal government to begin with, and state leaders went ahead and put them up anyway at an extremely high cost to taxpayers.

“We have already spent over $25 million in taxpayer money to engineer, build and install these signs all over the Thruway and now are spending more of our money to repair them after our devastating wind storm. As I said last week, I am calling on the governor to halt the repair and installation of these signs and use that money to repair our roads and infrastructure after the recent terrible wind storm. It is possible these signs being blown down was a message from above and the governor should consider that if he continues to waste the people’s money on their maintenance.”