Residents expressed varying opinions during a forum on plans to update Temple’s highway garage site Thursday.

A special Town Meeting in June 2023 voted to rescind approval from that year’s Town Meeting which would have established a five-acre parcel on the town-owned 65-acre Skladany land as the new site for the Highway Department. Special Town Meeting also approved establishing a committee to pursue all options pertaining to the current Highway Department site.

On Thursday, the Highway Garage Study Group presented options to the 20 residents in attendance that included changing nothing regarding the site behind Town Hall and continuing to fund its regular maintenance, removing two existing buildings and constructing an equipment and grader shed and new two-vehicle bay that would be heated, building just the two heated vehicle bays and constructing a pole barn for a grading vehicle. The fourth option would be to build a grader shed, a new heated two-vehicle bay, remove the equipment shed and remove or modify the Block building. 

“Your best option is to do nothing,” said resident Gail Cromwell, who suggested other town priorities. “The Fire Department needs new showers. We’ve seen the need for a new town office building.”

David Rosen of the study group said that the committee’s task was not to address other municipal issues in the town.

“I like option four,” said Kent Perry, the town’s road agent, referring to the plan that would remove or modify the Block building. Perry cited the need to store winter salt and sand efficiently as a reason for upgrading the facility. 

One resident cited what she called the town’s inadequate library. Bruce Kullgren Jr. of the study group responded to suggestions that the group should have proposed projects other than updating highway facilities.

“That was not our charge,” he said. 

Al Pickman took exception to this point.

“That’s not what the warrant article says,” said Pickman, pointing to the presentation slide on a screen over the stage. 

Pickman’s volume and tone prompted a request from a woman in the audience who declined to be identified. “Can we move that people be respectful to everyone?” she said.

The study group’s presentation estimated the most extensive reconfiguring of the garage site would  cost approximately $400,000. The total cost of any project would be offset by an existing Garage Relocation Fund of $249,000.

“I’m a business owner, and honestly, you can’t get a building for this built for that price,” said study group Chair Clay Lennartz.

There was no call for a vote on the options presented. 

“We were asked to do a specific thing,” said study group member Russ Huntley. “That’s what we did. It’s actually healthy to disagree, and over the next few years, we’ll come together as a town and solve this.”

“There isn’t an urgency to do it,” said study group member Amy Cabana. “A very nice downtown doesn’t matter if no one can afford to live here.”