CONWAY — The Highway Garage Committee hopes to have a recommendation by next year’s annual Town Meeting so the town can proceed with the design phase for a new garage.

To do so, the committee has scheduled five meetings between now and next May to detail its process and rationale.

The first of the meetings is slated for Nov. 6 and will begin with a site visit to the current highway-fire departments building, at 15 Ashfield Road, at 6 p.m. That meeting will then move to Town Hall’s general purpose room. The other meetings are set for Dec. 4, Jan. 15, Feb. 12 and March 12.

Town Administrator Tom Hutcheson has previously said the current facility on Route 116 has “been unsatisfactory for quite some time.” He said the idea is to build a new one behind the salt shed near Conway Grammar School, allowing the volunteer fire department to have all of the current garage. A new garage would allow the town to keep all its heavy equipment under cover, which it cannot do now.

Documents pertaining to the 2013-14 design and bidding process can be found at bit.ly/2yGA2cj. The Highway Garage Committee has been tasked with overseeing the new garage’s development, from assessing needs to finishing construction.

“Anyone who has ever looked at the plans has not found a way to make them cheaper,” Hutcheson said. “It means the first committee did its job. What we failed to do is get that information into the public mind.”

The posting of these five meetings came about two weeks after voters at a special town meeting in September opted to amend and then reject an article aimed at advancing the garage’s development. Adoption of the original article would have moved $200,000 of taxpayer money to the Highway Garage Fund to fund project’s design phase and to hire a project manager, but voters decided to accept an amendment offered by resident Tom Lesser to change the figure to $75,000. Voters adopted the amendment, but rejected the amended article, which required a two-thirds majority to pass.

Hutcheson has said the town approved a highway garage study in 2012 and in May 2013 authorized $175,000 to develop construction plans. Voters opted twice in 2014 not to borrow money for the project after learning it would cost $2.6 million. Hutcheson said the measure, requiring a two-thirds majority, failed by roughly six votes the second time. He said residents in May 2017 voted in favor of a non-binding article to resurrect the highway garage project.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.