In an op/ed piece in the spring 2011 issue of The Gardiner Gazette, McKinstry Road resident Carol O’Biso dubbed her road The Land the Snowplows Forgot. “The plows did get here, of course, but it was usually well after the white stuff had already been coming down for a long time, and they came back infrequently as storms wore on,” she wrote.
But the winter of 2010/11 had been markedly different: “perfectly plowed throughout every snowfall … in a winter of many snowfalls.”
What had changed? Prior to that winter, McKinstry – County Road 7A – had been maintained by the Ulster County Department of Public Works (UCDPW), whose road crews are spread across a large jurisdiction. Sparsely populated rural neighborhoods like Gardiner’s southern frontier have a low ranking on the county’s priority list. But in 2010, Gardiner’s town board had approved a shared-services agreement with Ulster County, whereby the local highway department took on the plowing of McKinstry and another county road in the township, Sand Hill Road, in exchange for annual payments from county coffers.
O’Biso wrote her essay to thank town highway crews for “taking on their new task with a vengeance” and to urge municipal officials to “sign a 400-year shared-services agreement with the county.”
Alas, McKinstry residents, as well as motorists who use it to access Burnt Meadows Road or as a shortcut from Albany Post Road to Bruynswick Road, may have to get used to being plowed last once again this coming winter. As it stands, they’re already being seriously inconvenienced by the recent closure of the bridge where McKinstry crosses the Wallkill River, close to the road’s western terminus at Bruynswick.
According to town supervisor Marybeth Majestic, last month a crew from the UCDPW had just happened to be underneath the bridge conducting a routine inspection when a truck whose load far exceeded the posted weight limits for that crossing passed overhead, terrifying the inspectors that a collapse might be imminent.
“Ulster County closed the bridge immediately, with no advance notification. It could be closed for two years,” to address structural problems, Majestic reported to her town board at its September 1 workshop meeting. “It’s too broad a span for the county to do in-house. They’ll have to bid it out, and that could take a year or more.”
While the entire road remains accessible from either end, the need to keep the town’s snowplow crew on an efficient route schedule is making highway superintendent Brian Stiscia rethink his plan to continue having McKinstry as Gardiner’s responsibility. The town board voted earlier this year to renew the ongoing shared-services contract, but will reconsider that decision at its next meeting.
“Brian is saying it’ll take twice as much work and twice as much money if they even agree to do it,” Majestic said.
According to Stiscia, the Ulster County highway crew is chronically understaffed in winter because seasonal snowplow drivers are only paid $17 to $18 per hour – “Plus, they’re short of vehicles in the southern part of the county.” Absorbing the extra time needed to access the road from two directions will put Gardiner’s highway department in the position of having to hire an additional driver as well, he said – a contingency not anticipated in its 2020 budget.
“It creates a whole other run,” Stiscia said. “I’m torn between taking it, and the extra money, or letting the county do it.” He wondered aloud how his department would manage “if Covid exploded” and some of his drivers were out sick during snow season. “We don’t want anything more on our plate. But people on that road are really going to suffer if we don’t do it.”
A vote to rescind Gardiner’s decision to maintain McKinstry Road this winter is on the agenda for the September 8 meeting of the town board. Such a move would certainly dash O’Biso’s hopes for a 400-year contract.
A reallocation of funds to enable Stiscia to hire a temporary part-time driver is also a possibility. “We’ll all stand behind whatever Brian decides,” Majestic promised.
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