Cobleskill Appoints New Highway Superintendent

COBLESKILL — At the Town Board Meeting in Cobleskill on September 9th, Supervisor Werner Hampel appointed Timothy Gallagher, a five-year employee of the highway department, to Highway Superintendent retroactive from August 10th till December 31, 2024. His position was unanimously approved by the Town Board.  

Greenbush Hill Road has been closed due to a replacement of a culvert to be upgraded to a bridge. The Greenbush Hill Road Project was updated by Brandon Becker from Lamont Engineering.  He stated that the contractor has completed most of the stream stabilization work at this time.  He is now working on replacing the culvert.  

Originally the culvert was designed as an aluminum arch culvert, but the contractor has elected to construct a full concrete case in place of the existing structure. In the long run, it will be better for the Town because it allows the bridge to be angled downstream a little bit more, he said.  This will help with the erosion of the stream.  It will take longer to construct.  There will be three to four weeks for pouring the two footers and then the concrete walls and deck.  

This should be completed by the end of October.  Then paving needs to be done. The structure is 14 feet wide x 6 – 8 feet tall. He also changed the angle of the bridge to be more direct aligning it with the stream and taking it down a bit further so that when the water comes out it isn’t eroding the stream bank on the other side. 

Timothy Gallagher, the new Highway Superintendent, discussed the Town will be working with Cobleskill Stone to coordinate the paving of the bridge. They will be paving the rest of the road to Greenbush Road at the same time. 

A Memorandum of Understanding was presented to the Village by the Town for the Highway Agreement.  There will be further discussion between the village and town board before the agreement is approved.  

Mayor Rebecca Terk said she was pleased to get the Memorandum but she has some questions and is hoping that they get resolved.  She wants the taxpayers to realize there are differences from the old contract going forward.   She also asked the town to be very considerate of the formula that they are looking to change in this proposal.