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Date: 5/17/2023
BLANDFORD — The town’s Fire and Highway departments hosted an open house on May 13 in order to give residents an opportunity to tour their garages, both of which have been deemed inadequate for the departments’ equipment.
At the Fire Department garage, interim Fire Chief Adam Dolby, Deputy Chief Tom Ackley and volunteer firefighter Derek Daudelin were on hand to give a tour of the 1920s-era brick three-bay garage, and show just how tightly all the equipment and personnel have to squeeze in.
“The newest fire truck, a tanker, is not here, it’s at the highway garage,” Dolby said, about the 2022 Freightliner the town recently purchased. He said the UTV, which is used for patient extrication from the woods during brush fires, doesn’t fit in the garage either, and is kept on a tractor in the Town Hall parking lot.
Two vehicles in the first bay of the garage are “stacked,” with the brush truck parked behind the fire rescue truck used for medical calls. Dolby said when there’s a brush fire, firefighters have to pull the rescue truck out first to get to the brush truck.
Next to both trucks in the first bay, firefighting gear is hung on a rack on the wall with a narrow space in between for firefighters to get dressed. Dolby said if some firefighters start driving to the call while others are still getting dressed, there is a danger someone might get clipped.
In the middle bay, firefighters have to back in the ladder truck with only inches of clearance. Dolby said the truck has taken damage from scraping the side of the door. The Squad 2 mini-pumper in the third bay, which Dolby said is the first to head out on many calls, is also a tight squeeze.
There is an office in the back of the garage that is also used for storage, and a small room next to the bathroom used for a break room. The garage shares its septic system with the house next door.
Outside, the bricks on the exterior of the garage bays are cracked. There is no room on the inside ceiling to put in an automatic garage door opening and closing system, so that has to be done manually.
Both Dolby and Ackley said they believe the fire garage must be replaced. Ackley, who served the town as fire chief for 30 years, said there is a proposal to build a combined fire garage and a highway garage with an office in between, that may be able to be done in stages.
A mini-town meeting on May 22, at 7 p.m. in the Select Board chambers in Town Hall, will review warrant articles and the fiscal year 2024 budget in advance of the Annual Town Meeting on June 5.
Funding for the design of new fire and highway garages will be on the warrant, and will be discussed at the mini-town meeting.
Blandford Town Administrator Christopher Dunne said the warrant article will be slightly different than the one voted down at a special Town Meeting on Nov. 14, 2022.
In November, residents voted 35 against, and 33 in favor, of continuing the $75,000 contract with an owner’s project manager, hired by the town with approval of residents at a previous Town Meeting; and against paying $180,000 for the design firm of Weston & Sampson to come up with a schematic design for a new combination fire and highway garage.
Although the room was closely divided, the votes would have required a three-quarters majority to pass. The project manager funding was to come from the Building Stabilization Fund, and funding for the schematic design from free cash.
Town administrators, then-Fire Chief David Mottor, who has since retired, and Highway Superintendent David Waldron tried to make the case at that meeting to move forward with designs for a new combination building.
“We’ve been working on this process for many years. It’s been careful and deliberate,” said Select Board Chair Cara Letendre. She said a previous design for separate garages for each department would have cost more. “I’ve been working here for 10 years, and have heard how unsafe the fire garage is.”
Letendre said the Fire Department is the first line of defense in the town for a medical emergency, such as a heart attack.
“Do any of us want to spend more money than necessary? Absolutely not,” she said, but “this is the next step in line to get there.”
Dunne said there would be cost savings in the plan to build one building for both departments.
At the time, Mottor said continuing to repair the current Fire Department building was “throwing good money after bad.” He said the department burns 200 gallons of heating oil a week in the old garage, due to drafts and a lack of insulation. He said there are a lot of structural repairs needed: “The building is a maintenance nightmare.”
One resident at the November meeting questioned whether the Highway Department needed the upgrade, and suggested that voters would be “more receptive” to a proposal for a fire station only.
Waldron said the current highway garage was built in 1947, and the town now has bigger trucks and bigger equipment. Waldron said he is unable to bring his Mack truck into the garage to load with sand and salt, and has to load those materials first onto a smaller truck, then transfer to the large truck. The process means it takes his department an hour and a half longer than it should to prepare for a winter storm.
“I have equipment that has never seen the inside of a building,” Waldron said.
The highway garage was also included in the open house on May 13. Waldron, Dunne and Mary Kronholm, assistant town clerk, were there.
“We wanted to give people a chance to look at the equipment and the state of the garages, to understand the needs,” Dunne said.
Kronholm also talked about the need for the buildings. “There will be something on the warrant in regards to funding the plans,” Kronholm said.
“We don’t know the cost,” said Waldron, standing outside next to the trucks that don’t fit in the garage.