Wow. You need a bit of insight. But, I won't fault you're ignorance, as most fall in the same boat. I can speak to this because I was involved in the project. Your sewers were clay. Services filled with tree roots and failing. Storm drains dumping into the same system to overwhelm the plant during rain storms, causing raw sewage to dump into the local river. Oh yeah, there was sewer mains across the river. Failing.

The water system was ancient cast iron mains filled with scale so bad, once 8 inch diameter pipes with down to less than 4 inches. The town water department couldn't even tell the engineers what pipe existed or where many were. The services were in the same boat, water shutoffs buried under years of grass, frozen solid by rust, and non functional. You got brand new ductile iron mains, new gate valves, properly buried services, and the town can now shut down water in the event of an emergency or for general maintenance to REDUCE THE PIPE SCALE THAT WOULD MAKE YOU PUKE IF YOU SAW IT. The majority of the project cost was underground, which is why it took 3 years. We ran 2.5 miles of water main, 6- 12 ft underground, while maintaining current water services. Yes, that's ugly but necessary. Would you rather wake up one day to an entire street out of water because you've let the pipes rust into oblivion?
You now have a wonderful storm drain system with catch basins lining the entire road that properly accommodate rain storms, rather than the literal hodge podge of unknown drains feeding untreated turbid water into your local rivers and streams.
We buried miles of phones lines and electric, moving utilities into conduit to not only beautify the mains streets, but protect those vital services from major storms. We ran thousands of light posts, revitalized two historic broken water fountains to their previous designs in parks that used to be ADA nightmares. THE sidewalks were broken, cracked and impossible for much of the aging town to navigate. You must be young.
Sidewalks as now brick lined, ornate, and have far more character than the broken chunks of slab, heaved by the same tree roots ruining your sewer service.
The road was dug up 5 ft deep and replaces with dense graded crushed stone, to drain better and hold up the test of time. They were replaced with superpave, nearly 1.5 ft thick, on ground compacted so hard that pike said it was the best subbase they paved all year.
You got two brand new parks with water fountains, and plantings, and trees, maintained for summers to ensure they took well.
You got a number of really nice stone walls and retaining walls that allow for better navigation for wheel chairs.

I'm not sure how you could possibly skew this as negative now. Like, are you trying to say it was better before, because that's the most disingenuous thing I've heard on this site.
Also, an entire towns infrastructure rebuild for 34 million? THAT IS A STEAL!!!!!!!! You should feel fortunate you got so many state and federal funds to revitalize your town, when so many other towns would kill to get what you got.
Again, it's not your fault, but your ignorant.