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By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
E. PUTNAM --- If planning and funding all fall into place, East Putnam Fire Department members would hope to see a new, modern, more centrally located fire station, open by the end of 2013.
E. Putnam Fire District voters last week approved spending up to $450,000 for the costs surrounding buying a 21-acre parcel on Rt. 44, across from the entrance to Matulaitis. Douglas Cutler Jr., president of the fire district, said the district 10 years ago started saving to buy property for a station to replace the current station built around 1960. Another $85,000 in the district's budget is earmarked for the engineering and design work.
The district hopes to have the land purchased, any required permits and a set of buildable plans in place by January. After that, the work begins --- pursuing grants and funding from the state and federal government to build the new fire station. He said both Town Administrator Douglas M. Cutler and Economic and Community Development Director Delpha Very have offered to help pursue grants.
"If we get the funding 'in quick time'," he said, "we would hope to break ground in the beginning of 2013 and be moving into the building by the end of 2013."
Currently the old fire station is a poor home to five pieces of apparatus in a four-bay building. Cutler said the new station may have seven bays and the intent is for the new station to be home to the East Putnam Fire Department for 100 years. He said he would guess that the new station might cost between $2 million and $3 million.
"We really can't do anything with the property we have now. We can't expand (more) and we don't own the property," Cutler said.
Since the department knew it had to move, the department sought out a more centrally located property; one that has more sight-line in and out; a piece that can handle the "large footprint" of a fire station building and the surrounding asphalt; and works with the non-fire department traffic. Property closer to Stonewall Common was considered, but traffic is congested there, he said. The location across from Matulaitis, even if the commercial district spreads east down Rt. 44, would work. "We want to build the next one (station) for the next 100 years," he said.