Trouble ahead: Amenia’s highway garage

The Millerton News published an article on Oct. 7, 2004, outlining the numerous safety issues with the Amenia Highway Garage on Furnace Bank Road in Wassaic. Almost nine years later the same building is still standing with minimal repairs, and more issues have been added to the list.“I’ve been told since I started here 20 years ago that we were getting a new garage,” said Highway Superintendent Stan Whitehead during a tour of the facility.In February of this year Whitehead presented an estimate to the Town Board from Stable Hollow Construction for a new building.“They gave us an estimate for a new garage that would cost $282,000,” he said. “I’m aware that there are additional costs, such as the boiler. This is just for the building. But it’s a lot cheaper than some of the other estimates we’ve had in the past that come in around a million dollars.”Particular problemsSome of the issues Whitehead pointed out were where the elements eroded the structure over the years.“The roof is leaking. We’ve had tar poured into the gaps, but that just leaked down the walls,” he said.There is also concrete chipping away from the doorways and cracks in the exterior walls.“We were told that the walls are leaning out, away from the foundation,” he said. “We keep patching the cracks as we see them, but it’s just putting a band-aid over a much larger problem. It’s not a fix.”There are also electrical boxes that sit under a leaky portion of the roof, and an inadequate facility for emergency showers.“Say a guy gets battery acid on him while he’s working on one of the trucks. I have to bring him into this small space, turn a knob and put him under what’s basically just an open pipe squirting out the side of the wall,” he said.The highway employees also struggle with an overall lack of space at the garage.“We can get our five plow trucks in here in the winter, but then you can hardly walk between them,” he said.Whitehead works in an office at the garage along with Secretary Judy Carlson, who worked there for 24 years.“We used to have the heating in the office come in through the vents, but with the exhaust from the vehicles you can’t breathe, so we switched to an electric heater,” he said.Carlson’s and Whitehead’s desks are pushed together to make as much space as possible to move around.“If Judy sits in her chair, it’s such a narrow spot that she can’t even swivel the chair around,” he said.Unable to maintain equipmentWhitehead noted that the town has spent money over the years acquiring equipment that the highway crew is not able to properly maintain.“We do our best with what we have, but it’s a shame that we can’t perform all the proper maintenance to keep the equipment running at its best,” he said.The town’s trucks need to be hosed off during the winter months to prevent the salt and sand that they haul from doing damage to the vehicles.With the limited space inside, crew members must stand outside in the winter and hose the trucks down.“Sometimes it’s so cold the water just turns to ice as soon as it hits the truck,” he said. “We’re trying to maintain the equipment, but that doesn’t get them clean.”What’s nextThe ongoing problem has been brought before the Town Board on numerous occasions throughout Whitehead’s 20 years.“I have guys who’ve worked here longer than me and they say the same thing,” he said. “We kept getting told that we’re getting a new garage, and it just never happens.”Currently the estimate that Whitehead presented in February was looked at by the board, which then agreed to work on a set of concrete plans.“Once the plans are done then it would go up for bid,” he said. “But it’s August now, so that means we’re going through another winter here. It’s discouraging.”The issue has not been revisited by the Town Board.“We do what we can, get them the information, but in the meantime we have to work with what we’ve got here,” Whitehead said. “We’re all kind of used to it, but it would be nice to see this project go forward.”