AUBURN -- Cayuga County legislators approved a move of funds to help build a Haiti Island Bridge replacement, but not without a pair of dissenters Thursday.

The 10-2 vote will transfer a mostly federal appropriation of $1.69 million from one Mentz project to another and speed up bridge replacement for about 60 Haiti Island residents. The money was intended for repair of the long-closed High Bridge that crosses a railroad on the boundary of Mentz and Montezuma in 2011-12.

Haiti Island residents in Mentz has been without full use of its only bridge since a portion of it fell into the Seneca River July 28.

Though critical of the town's inaction to replace the bridge sooner, county Legislator Paul Dudley lent his support to the resolution.

"I will support it," said Dudley, R-Cato. "Let's move forward."

Legislator David Pappert agreed that the situation needed immediate county action.

"This has nothing to do with how we got to this point, it's a health and safety issue," county Legislator David Pappert, R-Auburn, said. "What we are really being asked to do in essence is to switch our place in line.

"Absolutely, it's the right thing to do," he said. "We cannot leave these people in the predicament they are in."

Legislators Steven Cuddeback, R-Niles, and Francis Mitchell, R-Genoa, cast the no votes. Inability to get the federal funds for the county's High Bridge was one concern.

Read the full report in Friday's edition of The Citizen.