By Doug La Rocque
It’s been a subject brought up at various Town Board meetings for many years, but Councilman Eric Buckley told The Eastwick Press “we are seeing the results of at least 10 years of no planning and no action. [private] I’m astonished, and the Town needs a lot of money that we don’t have.” Buckley is speaking about the condition of the Town’s buildings and highway equipment. This follows a workshop meeting of the Town Board on Saturday March 4 to identify the problems and begin to formulate plans to fix them. 
Many priorities were discussed, including repairs to the Town Hall roof. A section of the roof over the Supervisor’s office is being held down by a tire, and in other places a number of shingles are missing. The Highway Garage is another area of major concern. The doors to the four bays are in serious need of repair, the bay openings need to be widened to allow trucks to enter with snow plows and wings mounted on them. The drainage is no longer usable because it lacks oil and sediment separators and had to be plugged. This is causing snow run off from vehicles to pond in sections of the bay that have concrete floors. This ponding is causing damage to some of the walls and the concrete. Members of the Town Board who toured the garage with Highway Superintendent Herb Hasbrouck also commented on some of the inside conditions, such as the lack of any kind of break area for the employees, and the accumulation of old equipment and vehicles. One side of the garage also has a stone and dirt floor. The repairs needed to the roof over the Town’s salt shed was another area cited as needing attention.
The condition of the trucks is also a matter of concern, highlighted by the fact that last month all but one truck was found to be out of date on inspection and some in need of repairs to pass that inspection. The time that highway department personnel put into frequent repairs is another of Buckley’s concerns. He will be pushing the rest of the board to consider purchasing two new trucks. “We have to start with new equipment so our highway department employees can be more productive in repairs and maintenance of town roads.” He admits to being dismayed at what he saw Saturday, but he said he is not discouraged. He said the Board members will be e-mailing their perceptions and suggestions on how to attack the problems. To Buckley, “the key is how do we fix them?”
Highway Superintendent Hasbrouck came away from Saturday’s discussions with a positive outlook. He applauded what he called “the Board’s initiative to get together to try to get some positive steps for the Town and no longer push the problems to the back burner.” He hopes that he and the Board “can try to move ahead in a way that has never been done before.”
The Eastwick Press asked Town Supervisor Ingrid Gundrum, as the Town’s Chief Fiscal Officer, how she envisions an approach to these problems that respects the Town’s fiscal constraints. “I think what we need to do is take a long hard look at what we have spent, what we have in inventory, what we have accumulated and see where we can find some cost savings.” She also suggested that we can refine our buying and purchasing procedures and garner some savings that way.
Gundrum said “we are looking at the whole picture, it’s not just the tangible things that we see that need repair, but how did they get that way, where have we dropped the ball in the past.” The Supervisor said “if we take a look back at what we have here already and build from there, I don’t think it’s going to be that costly this year, or in the next two years really.”
Councilman Buckley indicates it is his belief the Board will gather together again soon to discuss both their conclusions and develop a plan to move forward to address these concerns. There has been no time or date set for such a meeting as yet. [/private]