OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford The new Pomfret Highway Department salt barn, located on Chautauqua Road. The old salt barn is directly to the right

LILY DALE — Pomfret Town Board Highway Superintendent Jude Gardner hailed the completion of the town’s new salt barn Wednesday as a money-saving effort from his employees with collaboration from other municipalities.

Gardner said at a town board meeting held at the Lily Dale Fire Hall that he and his seven employees built the barn themselves. The towns of Ellery, Charlotte, Sheridan and Stockton all supplied equipment for the construction. Chautauqua County’s highway department offered and operated a paver to do the floor inside.

The county also assisted with a grant to help pay for the project, Gardner added.

The barn is essentially completed but plumbing to fuel tanks must be turned on and the parking lot outside has to be paved in the spring, the highway superintendent said.

“We saved a ton of money” by keeping the work in-house and getting help from other municipalities, Gardner said. He thanked the municipalities for their collaboration.

The highway workers also built a ramp to the new barn to keep water from pooling near it. There were materials supply issues that delayed the project, but total construction time was about five months.

Workers constructed the barn while continuing their other Highway Department duties, Gardner emphasized.

The Pomfret Town Board revisited a lapsed tradition by holding a meeting in Lily Dale. It used to meet once a year in the bucolic spiritualist community, but the previous meeting there before Wednesday was in 2021.

After a member of the audience thanked the board for coming, Town Supervisor Dan Pacos replied, “We got sidetracked a couple years… but we do like to come up here at least once a year.”