Politics & Government

New Town Highway Maintenance Facility Being Built

Facility, to be located in Holtsville, is expected to improve storm responsiveness.

This story was posted by Christine Sampson. It was written by Ryan Bonner.

Construction is currently underway on a new Town of Brookhaven maintenance facility in Holtsville. 

Brookhaven Highway Superintendent Dan Losquadro held a press conference at the site, located at the corner of Canine Road and Buckley Road, Monday morning to discuss the ground breaking. 

"It's going to make us more efficient and more responsive to the residents of the Town of Brookhaven," said Losquadro, of the facility, which will replace a former maintenance structure at the site that was demolished in October.  

The old building, which served as the Town's dog pound decades ago, had outlived its use and the back portion of the building had collapsed before it was demolished, according to Tom Gilbert, one of the Town's four highway general supervisors. 

"This is going to be a state of the art facility for highway," said Gilbert of the $1.2 million project, adding that new maintenance bays at the site will allow trucks to be pre-loaded before storms and then kept away from the elements inside until a driver shows up ready to go. 

Losquadro, a Republican elected to office in a special election in March on the heels of resident outrage over the Town's response to Feburary's blizzard, said the new facility, which is being built off-site and will be delivered in sections, should be completed and turned over to the Town in July. 

The money for the new maintenance facility, which will be one of eight spread across the Town [in addition to the main yard in Coram], was allocated by the Town Board four years ago, but the project never moved forward, Losquadro said. 

"Thankfully the money was still there and looking at needs, we were able to move forward this year," he said. 

One of the major criticisms during the record-setting blizzard this winter was that the Town's plowing equipment had to travel a long distance, especially coming from the South Shore, to fill up with fuel or get a repair, Losquadro said. 

"Whatever it might be, they weren't spending as much time on the ground performing the job," he said. "This [the Holtsville facility] is going to help them spend more time doing that."


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