SOUTH DEERFIELD — Town officials are determined to keep South County EMS in Deerfield by moving forward on a plan to build a station here.
The Selectboard has already asked Deerfield Academy if it might pay for the building.
Building a Deerfield ambulance station would be instead of leasing space in Whately, which was the original plan when the three-town service was established.
During September’s EMS Oversight meeting, Deerfield Selectboard member Henry “Kip” Komosa, who’s also on the ambulance board, proposed a 3,600-square-foot, wood-frame building on town-owned land — about 60 feet north of the South Deerfield fire station parking lot — that includes two bathrooms, garage space and room for offices.
Komosa’s proposal is the latest in a years-long building search for the three-town ambulance service, which covers about 70 square miles and more than 10,000 residents in Sunderland, Deerfield and Whately.
Currently, the service is working out of a few different locations in the region, including the South Deerfield fire station. In the past, EMS Director Zach Smith has said the service is stretched thin and requires permanent housing. Last month, in what some see as a power-play, all three Deerfield Selectboard members — Komosa, Chairwoman Carolyn Shores Ness, and member Trevor McDaniel — voted themselves onto the South County EMS oversight board. In total, the oversight board consists of six voting members and one non-voting member.
This summer, the ambulance service turned down two submitted location proposals. One location, proposed for around $650,000, was a combination of the Arts Bank and the former town fire station. The other was a specific configuration in the Whately office building. Both were rejected because of logistical reasons.
Komosa, who first hinted at his plan during a July Selectboard meeting, estimated his project would cost about $350,000 for a private organization to complete, and roughly $800,000 for a public entity to build. Currently, the land is zoned for highway and recreational purposes only.
“It’s no secret that I’ve been working on an alternative home for our EMS Service to put it on town-owned property adjacent to the fire station,” Komosa said during Tuesday’s Selectboard meeting, before the three-member board unanimously voted to draft a warrant article asking the public to fund the project and change the property’s zoning to general use.
Along with those items, the board also passed a motion to draft a model lease based on the ambulance service’s current agreement with the South Deerfield fire department, and develop a request for proposals to design, engineer and build Komosa’s plan. At the next meeting, on Oct. 5, the board will vote to put the then-completed draft items on an upcoming November Special Town Meeting warrant.
“My gut feeling is that the citizens of Deerfield would be, if necessary, willing to pay to put up a building to keep the service here,” Komosa said.
Plans have long called for moving the EMS from the temporary home base at the South Deerfield Fire Station to leased space in Whately, but many Deerfield officials have pressed to keep the ambulances based in their town.
Even though the board plans to request appropriation of public funds for the project, Komosa said he has asked Deerfield Academy if it would gift the proposed building to the town. At the oversight meeting, Ness expressed confidence that the private school will help fund building.
In regards to the board’s request, Deerfield Academy Spokesman David Thiel confirmed that the school has received a building proposal, but said no decisions have been made.
“We have received a proposal,” Thiel said Wednesday evening, “but there hasn’t been any discussions or formal decisions.”
In the meantime, town officials are moving full-steam ahead with the project. Komosa said if the town pays for this project, accrued debt would be paid back over about 30 years with the ambulance service’s monthly rent.
“If we also charged rent, although Deerfield is paying 52 percent of it, we would generate a small amount of income — roughly $20,000 per year — to offset the cost of this,” he said. “We’re going to pay one way or another. To me, personally, I’d like to keep it in town. But also financially it’s a better deal for everyone involved.”
The Selectboard’s presentation was met with heated controversy at the EMS oversight meeting.
Among other arguments against the project, oversight board member Jonathan Edwards, who is also on the Whately Selectboard, said South County EMS decided last fall to enter into singular negotiations with Whately for space in the town’s office building. Despite the decision, he said those negotiations haven’t happened yet.
Edwards also said it isn’t fiscally responsible to ask a town’s constituents for funding when there’s already a suitable location available immediately.
“Why would the town of Deerfield do that when the cost to go into Whately would be significantly less?” he asked. He estimated that moving into Whately’s building “would be in the neighborhood of $400,000,” split three ways among the towns, in addition to monthly expenses.
Regardless of opposition, the Selectboard will move forward with Komosa’s plan by voting on the proposed special town meeting agenda items, and fielding public reaction during its next meeting.
“I think it’s worth pursuing, and at least getting it engineered and figuring out what the true cost is,” McDaniel said. “Then we can speak intelligently to the town and say ‘this is what we’re thinking, this is what we think it’s gonna cost, this is why we think it’s best in our town and in that location’ — and get the feedback. We won’t know until we ask.”
You can reach Andy Castillo at: acastillo@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 263
On Twitter: @AndyCCastillo