By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- The village and town have reached a temporary solution to the Department of Public Works storage problem, but the mayor isn’t happy with the deal.

The town will let the DPW put their bulk sand and salt storage at the Highway Department garage, temporarily.

The village is selling their DPW storage lot to a soybean processing company, St. Lawrence Soyway.

“My preference is to find a permanent solution and if the permanent solution is at the current town facility, then so be it. One of the things I’ve been hoping for is to increase efficiencies and consolidate facilities. That’s why we looked at the property down at Bushnell. The support with other trustees is not there,” Mayor Tim Currier said.

The village had debated moving the storage to the current DPW site on Robinson Road, but locals protested.

Town Supervisor Joe Gray said the town had three options to help the village.

The village wanted to lease land on Pontoon Bridge Road, but the Town Council decided they didn’t want anything there. The town has a lot on Horton Road, which would be a considerable distance from the roads the village services. The final option was temporary storage at the Highway Department.

“That seems to make the most sense to me,” Gray said.

Both Currier and Town Supervisor Joe Gray feel it’s time to start talking about merging the Highway Department and the DPW.

“There’s advantages to be looking at a temporary solution in that we need to have serious discussions about merging these two departments,” Currier said. “It’s one of the few things we both operate that isn’t merged in some form.

“It’s certainly a desire of mine to look at and I’d love to see us move forward.”

“I like the idea. I thought it made sense for a long time. I think we should do it and do it in the location they’re currently in, but the neighbors don’t like it and I understand that,” Gray said of possibly merging town and village highway crews.

He said it would take a lot of planning and they would most likely need to hire planning or engineering consultants.

“We would need to clearly delineate responsibilities and accountably and who makes decisions on a day-to-day basis,” Gray said. “We’re going to need a consultant.”