Search pg 1 3-15-12
- Details
- Category: Past Issues
Search is
on for
fire dept.
funding
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
EAST PUTNAM — After a tour of the aging fire department building on Rt. 44, state and local officials are on the hunt for grants and other funding to help the East Putnam Fire District build a new fire department/community building.
Both State Senator Donald E. Williams Jr. and Putnam Mayor Pete Place, after viewing the old cinderblock structure bulging with fire trucks, equipment, records and more, are now on a quest to help find funding for a new $4 million facility that would meet the department’s needs for the long term.
Williams said he “can definitely” help on the Small Town Economic Assistance Program (STEAP) side, and said he’d have his staff, within the next two or three weeks, dig in and find more “first responder facility” funding.
Mayor Place, too, pledged to “do whatever we can do to help” and said he would ask Town Administrator Douglas M. Cutler to look for funding sources, as well.
The fire district will also be inviting State Representative and former Putnam mayor Daniel S. Rovero and U.S. Congressman Joseph Courtney to tour the old facility and to enlist their help as well.
The old firehouse sits on leased land, said Scott Belleville, head of the East Putnam Fire District Fire Station Building Committee and the town’s assistant fire marshal. “We can’t expand this building. There’s no place to go.” There’s one inch of clearance on each side of the doorway when backing a fire truck into the building. Even sucking in won’t work if you want to pass between the back of the fire truck and the wall. The current fire house was built in 1955. A new fire station would provide “a safe and efficient facility to improve working conditions, response times and community involvement.” In addition, the number of volunteers at the East Putnam Fire Department has blossomed.
The 3,000-square foot facility, Belleville said, needs a new roof and a new driveway. The new facility would encompass 13,000 square feet and take the department into the next century.
The East Putnam Fire District recently purchased 21 acres of flat land on Rt. 44, 2 miles closer to the center of town. That short move would allow the growing volunteer “first responder” department a four-minute head start to most of their emergency calls.
Case in point, Belleville said: Last year the department went on 238 calls. The number of times the department “turned right” out of the firehouse was 20. “20 out of 238,” he said. “We definitely do the bulk of our work west of the building.” When fire trucks need to be replaced, the new standard fire truck will be too long for the current old building.
The committee has been working on the project for a year and hopes to break ground in 2013 and move into the new facility in the spring of 2014.
Place said, “We support your efforts 100 percent. We will help in any way possible.”