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Road resurfacing and repair usually takes place during the months of April through November. “Half the crew is raking out all the turfed up spots from the winter, reseeding and adding topsoil where it’s needed on residents’ lawns. After that the sweepers go through and pick up all the sand and such from the side of the roads. Once the sodding is complete the guys can patch with hot mix so the plants are open. Some areas still have snow when we start but as soon as there’s no frost in the ground it’s raked off. “We quick fixed (cold patch) potholes all winter, but it doesn’t last long. It was a bad year for potholes. The temperatures were cold then warm then cold and warm again. We’d fix them and the next time it would rain or snow we’d either plow them out or they’d be frozen. That all makes a difference on how we do things and our scheduling. Last fall, there were things we should have been doing, but it had rained so much everything flooded and the sides of the roads washed out.” Despite their best efforts, the highway department will be patching and paving again as the temperatures start rising. “When it comes to paving we go with whatever money we have. We contract it all out to local companies. We have $125,000 from our town budget and $196,000 from CHIPS. We just try and do as many roads as we can. When we’re close to running out of money we’ll find a short road and go as far as we can with the money we have.”
Now the department is gearing up for summer. “We start cutting shoulders for the roads we’ll be paving next year. We try and get a year ahead on that and replacing culvert pipes. That gives them the entire winter to have the traffic pound them back down so when you pave them they don’t dip over every culvert pipe. Every year you sand and the sand goes in ditches and builds them up so the water can’t run off the road. We cut that off with a grader and pull the dirt up under the road so the road goes right down to the ditches and the extra dirt is eliminated.” Shawn depends on his crew of eight full-time employees and three part-timers to serve the town’s 7,500 residents. His staff includes Roland (Smiley) Maynard, deputy superintendent, assistant mechanic and foreman; Mark Brock, Melvin Miller, John Culliton, mechanic; John Weir, Duane Monaco, Ken Bulson, John Hayes, Patrick Kerr, Evan Rosko and Roy Simmons. All are Machine Equipment Operator Lights (MEOL). “I have a good bunch of guys. Smiley’s is my right-hand man. He helps me out with a lot of stuff and makes things easier. The rest of the crew… no matter what you tell them to do, they do it. When I first started, boy, being friends with them and telling them what to do was hard after working alongside them for so long.” Under Shawn’s attentive eye, the town of Schaghticoke’s highway continued on page 30
The Knickerbocker Mansion, constructed by Johannes Knickerbocker III in Schaghticoke (circa 1780), has been almost completely restored from a semi-ruin to its former grandeur by The Knickerbocker Historical Society. 22
Superintendent’s Profile • www.superintendentsprofile.com • June 2014