Snow job

Remember slogging through the worst winter in 20 years a few months back?

Remember the excellent condition the town roads were in?

I had the opportunity to talk to Highway Superintendent Mike Nielson today about the season.  For a guy who people feared wouldn't be able to do the job because he's a firefighter in Kingston, the results are pretty damned impressive.

Mike set himself the goal of keeping our roads clear while saving money.  Then, he got hit with the nastiest, harshest winter we've seen in a generation - I've confirmed how bad a season it was by checking with Wayne Kelder, who oversees the highways in the Town of Rochester on the other side of the ridge.

This winter was the one where every single highway department in Ulster County - including the county's - was over budget.  It's just one of those things that happens when you're dealing with the mysteries of weather, and towns have budget mechanisms to move money around when that much snow hits the plow.

New Paltz, however, spent 60% of its snow removal budget, and did it without those nasty sand buildups which are pretty much expected during the long, dark days of winter.

How 'bout that?

Here's a few more interesting details about the highway department:

• Past practice has dumped 1,800 pounds of sand and salt on the roads.  This season it was cut back to 700 - and Nielson feels that it can be done with even less material.
• To put it another way, Ulster County spent $35 per lane mile on snow removal.  New Paltz did the same job for $13 per lane mile, and Nielson has set a target of $7.
• This represents a savings to the New Paltz taxpayers of $84,000 for the season. The superintendent's salary is approximately $43,000, so Nielson has effectively worked for free.

Anyone who doesn't think we got our money's worth voting for Nielson should be prepared to demonstrate why.

Settling in at NPHD

Between the blizzard and the flood, when life was mostly unfrozen and nearly dry, I visited our new highway superintendent at his job.

Among criticisms of Nielson during the campaign were concerns that his job as a Kingston firefighter would prevent him from overseeing emergencies on New Paltz roads.  This last winter storm of this season brought more snow to New Paltz than any since 1996, and heavier snow than we've seen since the 1970s, according to Nielson, who has spent time getting to know the veteran highway superintendents in the area.

He was happy to show me around the facility, from the massive salt barn to the gigantic trucks that were purchased during the Reagan administration and still do the bulk of the plowing.  "A lot of what we do each day is pretty routine," he explained to me.  "We try to start all the trucks and, if we're lucky, we can get two of them running.  Then we pull the rest of them into the garage and fix them."

The highway department does have a number of newer vehicles, including 2008 truck which was acquired for the superintendent's use, and several pieces of heavy equipment.  However, the heavy truck capacity of the department at this time is lacking.  For example, it takes two trips to the department's garage to sand all the roads west of the Wallkill, because none of the trucks the department owns is rated to carry that much weight.

It looks like Nielson wants to create a plan to replace the aging fleet without facing taxpayer backlash; he told the town board he'd like to replace the deputy superintendent position with a part-time secretary, freeing up resources to get what amounts to a second foreman while cutting his payroll down by about twenty grand.  That's probably no more than a quarter of what a new triple-axle truck would cost.

Any vehicle replacement plan will have to be approved in the next budget, and Nielson says he's starting work on that as soon as possible.  First he's focusing on putting systems into place, such as a daily prioritized task list and a longer-term project list that can be used by the crew to identify the most important job to do next.

So what types of things has the new superintendent learned since he took office?  Not surprisingly, a lot about plowing.  "Mailboxes are a funny thing," he told me.  "By law they should not be in the town's right-of-way, but if they aren't the post office isn't going to deliver to it."  Pushing snow with up to 26 tons of force, a plow doesn't actually have to touch a mailbox for it to be destroyed by its passing.  Nielson told me he also understands why it's common for trees to be pushed out of the way by plows during a storm - it may not be the best tool for the job, but there's no time to bring in heavy equipment while the snow is still falling.

Nielson couldn't comment on the recent termination of one employee and suspension of another, but from what I've seen any allegations of his actions being a vendetta are beyond the pale.  He's already clocking over 45 hours a week and I'm sure he wouldn't create more work for himself like that unless there was good reason.