KNOX — Whipple, Helderberg and Malachi roads have been maintained by the Knox highway department for years, according to Highway Superintendent Gary Salisbury. Salisbury would like to see them become town roads.

Town board members said at their August meeting that there were portions of the roads which remain half-private and half town-owned. Supervisor Michael Hammond said Whipple Road, being half town-owned and half private is a product of subdivision dating back to the 1970’s.

Board members discussed the condition of the roads —whether they are up to town standards — and whether the roads fall under the Highway by Use Law, and have become town roads through years of public travel and continual maintenance by Knox employees.

Salisbury doesn’t know why the town hasn’t taken ownership of the roads.
"I’m all for the town taking the roads over," Salisbury recently told The Enterprise.
"They have been maintained by the Knox highway department for 20 years," he said. To snowplow Whipple Road, he said, "takes a matter of minutes," and it would "take longer to turn around in the middle of the road," where the road becomes private than plow the entire road.
"The reasons we maintain the roads is because school buses travel it and in case of a fire," Salisbury said.

Salisbury also told The Enterprise that the roads were built the same from one end to the other and that he would like to have them paved.

Department of State spokesperson, Eamon Moynihan, told The Enterprise, that in order for a private road to become a town-owned road, "There has to be some affirmative action".And there has to be some sort of administrative act."

While the board has made no declaration on adopting the roads or keeping them private, Supervisor Michael Hammond told The Enterprise earlier this month, "We will continue to maintain the roads."