BERNARDSTON — Nearly 200 residents overwhelmingly rejected a $2.6 million proposal to purchase land for and construct a new fire station at 23 Kringle Drive during a special town meeting Wednesday.
The vote was 165-to-31 against Article 1, which proposed purchasing the land for $585,000. Given the first vote, residents narrowly voted to pass over Article 2, which proposed spending more than $2 million on a new station’s construction, by a vote of 79-to-77.
Fire Chief Peter Shedd, who is also chairman of the Fire Station Expansion Committee, started Wednesday’s meeting at Pioneer Valley Regional School with a presentation outlining the current station’s shortfalls and goals for a new station. The current station at 18 Church St. houses four vehicles, with no room for the department’s three equipment trailers, which are stored outside, and has little office space.
“There is no room to pass by the front of the truck when the door’s closed,” Shedd continued, recounting how sometimes firefighters crawl through a vehicle to get to the other side. “The trucks and equipment were a lot smaller in the 1970s than they are right now. We’ve just outgrown that station.”
The Fire Station Expansion Committee considered several properties and decided to pursue the more than five-acre Kringle Drive lot because it offers the most room for expansion and wouldn’t displace any residents, Shedd explained. Though architects from Stevens & Associates agreed keeping with the town center’s aesthetic would require building with wood near the current station, a Kringle Drive building could be metal, which they said is cheaper to build.
When asked what it would cost to renovate the current station, expand it and bring the facility up to code, Shedd replied $1.5 million.
However, when asked what the lot’s assessed value was, Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Dutcher replied $62,500, which received laughter from the audience.
“I don’t think it’s good economics to say you’re going spend (nearly) ten times what the assessed value is,” resident Tom Newton said.
Some residents hoped to see the committee pursue the adjacent property donated by Frank “Bud” Foster. Shedd responded that the back of the property is wetlands, and would require a 100-foot buffer zone for construction.
“Over half of that lot is unusable,” he said. Construction there would also involve demolishing an apartment building and displacing two families.
Others hoped to see the committee look at creating a building that would incorporate multiple town offices.
“I’m wondering why, as a small town, why we’re just looking at another single-use building, why we’re not looking at a multi-use building,” said resident Andrew Girard, commenting on the number of town buildings. “Eventually, you’re going to replace seven, eight heating systems. You’re going to replace seven, eight septic systems … We’ve really got to look at consolidating so our operational expenses go down.”
“I think in the future, I don’t know when, we’re going to have to look at more office space for our town employees,” added Christina Wysk, Planning Board chairwoman. “We have to start thinking about the future of our town, not just one department, but any department.”
Resident Justin Duncan recalled how voters resisted building a new police station as well, but new infrastructure was still what the town needed.
“You can vote it down as many times as you want, but we still need a police station,” Duncan remembered saying at the time. “I feel the same way about this. … One way or another tonight, we need to fix the Fire Department.”
Articles that passed involved appropriating up to $20,000 to purchase a vehicle for Shedd; bylaw changes surrounding instituting a recreational marijuana moratorium and regulating wireless telecommunication facilities; allocating $294.29 to pay a fiscal year 2017 Police Department bill; and having a springtime vote on whether the town clerk’s position should become appointed instead of elected.