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The Fix Is Not Yet In For Milton Town Offices
MILTON — With leaking roofs and faulty plumbing regular subjects at town meetings, soon officials and taxpayers in Milton may have to consider borrowing a lot of money for renovations at the municipal complex.
Town Councilman Benny Zlotnick, as chairman of the Facilities Committee, has been leading discussions for weeks focused on upgrades needed at Milton’s town offices, which are located at the Geyser Road and Rowland Street intersection.
The buildings at the 8-acre complex were put up in stages starting about 50 years ago.
Aside from abundant talk about new facilities for the town Highway Department, the discussions have included persistent roof leaks and aging sewer pipes that, according to town employees, keep disrupting work routines in several offices.
“Our major concern is, what is this building going to need to be livable again?” stated Zlotnick. A presentation will be made at the town board meeting on June 21, he said.
Zlotnick said the committee is working with Joel Bianchi, a director of municipal contracts for the Clifton Park firm MJ Engineering, to finalize its presentation. Bianchi was present at the meeting on Tuesday and attempted to address various concerns.
Town Building Inspector Wayne Howe, a member of the Facilities Committee, described a meeting in his first-floor office the same day when an older sewer pipe happened to burst in the ceiling above. The tainted water started dripping on his desk.
“Whatever the strategic plan is, we need to come up with that plan,” Howe said.
Howe opined that town leaders should consider approving two separate projects, either of which would require significant borrowing by Milton.
The first would involve moving the entire highway department to a separate location off site, which Howe said is warranted by the town’s rapid growth in recent years; the second project would involve demolishing the current highway department structures as part of renovating the main town office building.
“You can’t really re-do town hall until highway is gone,” Howe said. He added that he favors moving weekly Town Court proceedings to the spacious second floor, where the full town board now meets twice each month.
Howe also expressed his frustration with the slow progress toward solving these problems in Milton.
“I’ve been on this committee for three administrations and we still don’t have a town hall,” Howe confessed. “The ball never gets carried to the finance level.”
“With the exception of the salt shed falling down, we’ve made no progress,” concurred town employee Jason Miller, who also sits on the committee and oversees buildings and grounds in Milton.
Miller referred to the collapse in early 2016 of the town’s storage shed for road salt. A new shed was then built on another 8 acres of town property off Rowland Street that border the Saratoga County Airport.
Rather than pursuing large projects, which often require the town board to borrow money after public votes of approval, Bianchi advised making expenditures in smaller amounts as a solution.
Zlotnick said that any recommendations from the Facilities Committee should be prepared well enough to garner public support, especially if the total dollar amount for renovations “has a couple of commas in it.”
