Rumor Mill Has It There Is Something New In Town

[David Shea]

Henry,

You are right senior citizens are treasures to our town. 

The only other Municipal building that is a available is the school.

I know that this building also has millions of dollars worth of equipment and confidential student records.  Let us hope that the school board does not decide to deny access to all of the weekend sporting teams, success by six activities, hunter safety classes ect.  If they ever do, what will we do?

Dave

[Chris Santee]

I have contacted Union Bank to hear their plans for the KMC building.
I will post their reply.

I am not trying to jump the gun here, just inquiring THEIR plans.

[David Shea]

Hello again,
I contacted a former selectman who was involved in the decision to build the current fire station.
At the time the town built the station for approx $300,000.00.  The land was purchased at a bargain from Ben young in exchange that the town would build a road for him so that he could develope his land that is behind the fire house.  This road was never built by the town, I do not know why. The site work was done by the town road crew and the buildind was built by Adams, the owner of which was the fire cheif in Milton at the
time.

The reason that the senior citizens were given use on the dead was that the bank who financed it had
a lower interest rate for municipal stuctures that proved for multiple town uses.  Peoples trust financed the project.  At this time the school
was not in lock down mode so access was very casual.  Therefore the seniors were the one group at the
time that needed a space.

So a condition of financing was to provide for multi use, not to mention it secured a few more votes on the bond
decision.  This loan was paid off in 3 or 4 years, 1986 or so.  The bottom line is that the original condition of use has
expired with the final payment of the loan.

It is great to be able to still speak with the original decision makers to figure out the original rational.

[7F5]

Semi true Dave. The land I was told was donated. We have a plaque down here on the wall thanking the family for the land donation. Being involved with emergency services for 29 years I can remember the whole ordeal. The loan could not have been paid in 1986, we did not move in until winter of 1990.

We had originally bought land from the church, but found it was land locked. That was when this land was donated and being that some of the family members were getting along in age and enjoyed the senior luncheons they requested the site for fire/rescue and senior meetings. Do not believe anything was chiseled in stone. Also during zoning meetings, questions were asked about fund raising for building maintenance and equipment. Zoning said no, safety and parking.

Yes, we have a bay semi open. Question, who blocks who's' equipment in? Also if the powers to be decided to build or renovate a site for Fairfax Rescue, is the taxpayer going to flip the bill for an incorporation?

 

[resqmas701]

I know that I am late jumping in here and I apologize. I have been out of state and apparently out of the loop since this all started. First I want to say thank you to all of you who are concerned with the situation that Rescue is currently in. It is unfortunate that some of the information that made it into this forum was not completely accurate or not completely true though most of it had at least some factual basis.

The truth is that Rescue did just receive shipment on its' new ambulance and that we are currently looking for a permanent home for it. What is also true is that just before I let town on vacation, Chief Dean Potter and I had a very lengthy conversation about temporarily housing the ambulance in the station until the new tanker the Fire Department has on order arrives. This frankly is what Rescue asked for and was all we could expect.

What is patently untrue is that Rescue and Fire do not get along. It is true that we are separate organizations and as such we need to make decisions that protect what few assets we both have. Those assets include equipment and space. As organizations we work hard to get the things we have so we are very protective of what we get.

The fire station was built quite a few years ago and at the time there was added extra space to accommodate Rescue and to allow for growth for the Fire Department. That growth has occurred and now the Fire Department is faced with a limited space issue and not much hope of expanding that space in the near future. What was not planned for at the time was the growth of Rescue which until just a couple of years ago was not a real issue.

With this in mind Chief Potter and I came to the agreement that the second ambulance could stay in the available bay at the station until such time as their new tanker is delivered. Again this is a good solution for all involved.

Several comments were posted regarding staffing levels, the need for the second ambulance and the purchase of the KMC building. I will try to answer these questions here. If I miss any let me know and I would be happy to address them

First, our staffing levels are not what I consider critical. In a perfect world I would like to see nothing but 3 person crews on the ambulance. It is not however a perfect world and the fact is that most services are fielding 2 person crews. This is acceptable practice in the ambulance industry and is the minimum requirement of the state EMS office. We do still use per diem staff members primarily to cover our weekday shifts. I do not see this changing in the immediate future unless we find a wealth of retired persons willing to volunteer or a lot of people working the night shift who can give of their time. Volunteerism is at an all time low. It used to be that there was actually a waiting period to get into some volunteer organizations. Now most families are multiple income just to survive. The stay at home mom is practically nonexistent. We do struggle for volunteers but the ones we have are passionate about what they do and give much of there time.

The question was asked whether we could staff a second ambulance and the answer is that we could a good deal of the time, probably more than 50% of the time. Without trying to sound crass, the fact is that runs equal revenue and increased revenue means lower requests from tax payers. The fact is that over the last 4 years our call volume has increased between 10 % and 20% each year. The trend that we are seeing is that we are missing an increasing number of calls because the ambulance is out of service for repair or on another call. Every time Rescue is unable to take a call it equates to lost revenue and increased wait time for the person needing assistance.

Our old truck is 10 years old. It is still serviceable but needed to be replaced as a front line vehicle. When we decided to purchase a new truck the best offer we had for the old one was $4000.00. When you consider we purchased that truck for $110.000.00 it became a no brainer. The truck was paid for and owed us nothing. If it takes 10 calls per year it made us more than trading it in would have netted us. Not to mention the fact that we will not be out of service again because the ambulance is being serviced or repaired. It really just made good sense.

At the time this decision was made we thought we had secured housing for the second truck in Westford which made sense since we have many members living in that town and we provide service to them. That deal fell through. We are currently looking at any and all options. One of those options includes approaching the Union Bank about possibly renting us a space at the old KMC among others. I am aware of the Hazmat situation there and would not want to own any part of that.

Even this would be a temporary solution. The bottom line is that Rescue has out grown its' present quarters and in the longer term needs to address those needs. That may be the purchase of land, the purchase of a building, adding to the existing building. We just don't know and we will keep working on it until we work it out.

I want to close this by reiterating that Fire and Rescue get along just fine. We do not always agree but who among us can say we always agree with someone else. In truth I would and do trust my very life to members of our Fire Department on a regular basis as I know they trust their lives to those on Rescue. We have a common goal and that is to protect the people in our community in the best way that we can. I think I can speak for both of our services by saying that we always welcome new members. I can think of no better way to serve your community than by providing essential services to our neighbors in need.

Sincerely

Michael Spaulding
President, Fairfax Rescue

[vtoutdoorguymb]

Well said Mike, thanks for clearing those issues up...