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Special Town Meeting to determine fire station funding

Date: 4/2/2012

April 2, 2012

By Chris Maza

chrism@thereminder.com

WILBRAHAM — A Special Town Meeting will take place on April 2 to determine whether or not the town will transfer a total of $533,860 from two separate funds in order to pay for portions of the expansion and renovation of the main fire station on Boston Road.

Two articles make up the warrant, the first requiring a majority vote to allow the transfer of $336,860 from the Ambulance Fund and the second requiring a two-thirds vote to use $195,000 from the Capital Stabilization Fund to finance eight alternates that the original budget will not cover.

Building Inspector and Project Manager Lance Trevallion explained that the Capital Planning Committee afforded the committee in charge of renovating the fire station $2.2 million for the project.

"It's kind of the reverse of what happens with most projects. Usually you develop a plan first, but we were given a budget that we had to work within and try to design a building that fit into that budget," he said.

With a budget figure and a design the committee felt would bring them within that number, the project was put out to bid.

"Knowing we only had $2.2 million to work with, we designed the bid with a base bid and eight alternates. Basically it means that if the base bid comes in under budget, but not the alternates, we would have a building, but not all of the finishings," Trevallion said. "We did that so we can at least award the base bid. If we couldn't at least award the base bid, we would have to start from scratch and all of the work designing the project would go out the window."

The base bid came in within the $2.2 million budget, but the total number including the alternates came out to roughly $2.7 million. The money from the two funds would go toward the completion of those alternates.

Among the alternates, which must be completed in the prioritized order listed, are a "fit-out" of the living quarters, estimated to cost nearly $280,000, according to Trevallion.

The second alternate was construction of the technology infrastructure and the third was an HVAC system upgrade.

The remaining alternates include new glass and aluminum overhead doors, new cabinets, outdoor canopies and a heat-radiant floor in the apparatus bay and landscaping.

Fire Chief Francis Nothe explained that the Ambulance Fund, created in 1992, is a revolving account fed through sources such as insurance companies after an ambulance transport and is used toward the upkeep of the town's ambulance services. He added that given the amount of medical response the Fire Department does, it makes sense to utilize some of the funding toward the building.

"Sixty-five percent of our business is medical as building codes get better and the baby boomers get older and develop more health issues," he said. "Because we have three ambulances and a medical rescue vehicle, we feel we can take some of [the Ambulance Fund] and appropriate it towards the building."

The Capital Stabilization Fund, which was created in 2005 following a study of the town's major projects, currently contains approximately $400,000 that has not been used since it was created, according to Trevallion.

"This seems to be exactly the thing that this fund was created for," he said.



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