Newcastle had a happier experience this winter with salting some thoroughfares rather than sanding alone, and it is willing to do it again.

“This was sort of an experiment,” said Selectman Ben Frey. “I’m hearing that people prefer it.”

Superintendent of Roads and Buildings and Grounds Steve Reynolds said he has been accumulating some bids for a building, but it may be best to build larger than the town needs currently and build a shed that can accommodate both salt and sand. “We’ll always need sand. You can’t put salt on gravel roads, and you don’t need it where there isn’t a lot of traffic, because it doesn’t do anything to melt the ice on those roads.”

Sand can be left uncovered, but that makes it difficult to chip off the ice and accumulating snow, he said. A shed that would hold both materials could cost upward of $400,000, and Reynolds recommended putting a line item in the budget to save up. In the meantime, he recommended building a salt-only, three-sided, metal shed with a metal roof at the old dump for about $25,000.

Currently, the materials are being stored by the plowing contractor, Hagar’s.

Frank Juchnik said the plows have destroyed his mailbox – again – and damaged his stone wall while turning around in his driveway. Reynolds said the state considers mailboxes “road hazards” unless installed following a very specific, U.S. Mail method, but that the stone wall damage should be covered according to the contract with Hagar’s.  Seth Hagar will be asked to come to the next meeting to discuss the issue on North Mills Road for next year, and to discuss Juchnik’s claim.

The board approved a letter to Commissioner David Bernhardt of the Maine Department of Transportation regarding a sidewalk that needs repair on Main Street. The selectmen feel it is a state issue because the sidewalk falls in the state’s right of way. A child fell off a tricycle there last summer, narrowly avoiding injury when the sidewalk buckled.