MONMOUTH – With a space crunch in a 40-year-old garage and a sand pile that freezes when winter reigns, Public Works Director Herb Whittier needs building improvements.

In the June 18 elections, voters will consider two different public works proposals, each priced at $200,000, he said. The first asks for an approximately 1,400-square-foot addition to the public works garage, and the second asks for a new roughly 8,000-square-foot sand and salt storage shed.

Currently, the Public Works Department contends with a serious space crunch in its garage at 75 Academy St., Whittier said.

Planners anticipate that the proposed addition to the garage would add two more bays to a building that currently has four bays, he said. The addition would also include a new office area and a break room.

Currently, public works employees park five vehicles in the four bays. The space gets even tighter in the winter with equipment such as plows, sanders and snowplow wings, Whittier said.

“You can barely walk around the place inside when you get everything in,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons we want to add on.”

The addition would mean more room for parking, Whittier said, adding that the department parks three vehicles outside – a 1983 GMC spare dump truck, a 1988 GMC utility vehicle and a 1986 Case front-end loader.

“That’s really tough on them in the winter time,” he said. During a typical winter, the Public Works Department stores approximately 5,500 cubic yards of sand, Whittier said.

But, he said, “It’s outdoor storage. We’re subject to freeze-up.” Because of that annual freezing problem about 4,600 cubic yards of the roughly 5,500 cubic yards of sand stored in the outdoor pile gets used during the winter, Whittier said. The rest has to be thawed in the spring, Whittier said.

The town keeps approximately 40 cubic yards of the 350 to 400 tons of salt it uses each winter in a small storage shed at 75 Academy St. just a stone’s throw from the public works garage, he said.

But the town’s front-end loader does not fit entirely in that small building, which means workers have to shovel a third of the salt out by hand, Whittier said. “It’s a lot of wasted motion for us,” he said.

The proposed new sand and salt storage shed would hold approximately 5,000 cubic yards of material, Whittier said. “That’s about what we use in one winter combined,” he said.

Selectman Caroline Allen supports the proposed new sand and salt storage shed. But she has some reservations about the proposed addition to the public works garage because of, among other things, the poor economy.

“Times are hard,” Allen said, adding that she remains undecided on whether to support that ballot item. “We’ve lost a lot of jobs.”

Ralph Bickford Jr., chairman of the Board of Selectmen, brought the other ballot item – the new sand and salt storage shed proposal – to his board in April.

“Right now the interest rates are favorable to borrow,” he said. “It’s up to the voters.”