Lowell Sun
PELHAM, Mass. — Just when the proposed new Pelham fire station was ready to die again, Selectman Hal Lynde applied some last-minute CPR. Crucial project resurrection, that is.
Though a majority of selectmen predicted that voters won’t support both a $3.8 million kindergarten and new fire station on the same March Town Ballot, Lynde persuaded the board to keep the fire station-ballot article afloat, provided they can significantly reduce the price, Chairman Doug Viger said.
Last March, Pelham voters defeated the proposed $3.95 million fire station, 2,538-2,163, garnering 54 percent approval. It was a majority, but short of the 60 percent needed to pass a bond article. Viger said last month that the board planned to return the firehouse proposal to the ballot next spring at a “more user-friendly price.”
But that was before Town Administrator Tom Gaydos reported Nov. 23 that the cost of building the same fire station had risen to $4.15 million. “It’s extremely disappointing,” said Selectman Ed Gleason. “Last year, we fought an uphill battle, and this year the School Board is coming in with a $3.8 million kindergarten plan at $3.8 million. If we add a $4.15 fire station on there, it doesn’t have a chance. I’m not optimistic about it passing.”
Viger and Selectman Bob Haverty concurred with Gleason that the fire station should be tabled for another year, despite the state’s pending construction of dual roundabouts in the town’s center, which are expected to decrease fire-response times from the existing station.
“If you put a kindergarten up against a fire station, the kindergarten wins every time,” said Haverty. “Unless we go back and look at the fire station over the next 12 months and come back with something that’s modified and scaled-down.
“Lynde was not convinced that voters would opt for constructing a new kindergarten (to replace the existing portable classrooms outside the middle school) over a new fire station, however. More residents benefit from fire services than kindergarten, he argued.
“You have a system in place now for the kindergarten that is working. You don’t have a system that is working for the firemen,” Lynde said.
“I’m for a radical revision of the building to get the cost down, if that’s what you want. But we need a new building,” Lynde added.
“But we simply have got to get (the fire station) out of the town center ."If residents won’t agree to replace Pelham’s outdated, poorly situated fire station in the town’s center with a $4 million “Taj Mahal,” as some have dubbed it, Lynde said he would be willing to put a Quonset hut on a pad in the middle of the Village Green” to serve as the new firehouse.
Rather than recasting the new fire station as a tin-can, though, Viger thinks at least 60 percent of Pelham voters would accept a pricetag of $3 million. “That’s my magic number, anyway,” Viger said. “It’s my gut feeling that If we can get we the number down to at most $3.2 million that would be a lot easier to pass.
“At the same time, we can’t just start cutting (garage) bays out of the plan because that’s a future need that we’re going to grow into,” Viger added. “It’s really quite a juggling act.”
Selectman Bill McDevitt said that though time is growing short, it’s possible to get an article on the March ballot if selectmen quickly revise the new fire station-design by extracting some building’s “frills” that voters complained about, including an elevator and extensive, second-floor living quarters.
Viger said that Fire Chief James Midgley (who did not return a phone message) told him this week that he’s willing to work with the board on a scaled-down version of the fire station. Selectmen must decide in January whether to put the fire station on the March ballot.
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