Town Board: Bids sought for Legion Hall roof

After a sometimes heated debate at its work session, the Town Board convened a special meeting on Tuesday and voted to seek bids for the replacement of the aging roof on the American Legion Hall. It also voted to seek bids for a structure to house the town’s new paper baler at the Recycling Center — it will come in a kit for erection in the spring while the baler is shrink-wrapped this winter — and agreed to hire Debra Speeches as the highway superintendent-public works commissioner’s temporary full-time confidential secretary at the rate of $17.50 an hour. She replaces the late Teresa Montant.

The work session debate pitted Supervisor Jim Dougherty, who said a decision about the Legion roof should wait for an engineer’s opinion, against Town Board members led by Ed Brown, who said it was time to make a decision and start the process of replacing the roof. Mr. Brown challenged the board members to get up from the meeting and walk across the street to look at the Legion roof.

Mr. Dougherty said he was against that “because it looks like we’re going to walk over there and say, ‘Boy! It needs a new roof!’ It’s too simplistic.”

The decision to convene a special meeting and formally vote to seek bids resolved the standoff.

Also at Tuesday’s work session, Supervisor Dougherty reported that engineer John Cronin had installed three strain gauges at the Legion Hall so the condition of its foundation, which has a bulge on the eastern side, can be monitored; work to begin the installation of new water mains in the town-owned West Neck Water District is being delayed at the request of its board president, Ann Dunbar, apparently because of some opposition among board members, Mr. Dougherty said; and the long overdue 2010 state-mandated town audit is still not in although a draft version has been submitted that gives the town high marks for its excellent financials, according to the supervisor.