Cameron Morsberger
The Sun, Lowell, Mass.
(TNS)

Mar. 27—WESTFORD — The $12.4 million proposal to demolish the vacant fire station and rebuild a municipal center in its place failed at Town Meeting Saturday.

Located at 51 Main St., the new building would have housed a number of local government offices, as well as an “improved meeting space” for town meetings that would accommodate five times the current meeting room’s capacity, Select Board Chair Andrea Peraner-Sweet said in an explanatory video played during the meeting. Peraner-Sweet said there is “no value in renovating the building.”

But the measure was widely opposed, with voters rejecting the article in a 162-241 vote.

Resident Heather Fitzpatrick spoke against the motion before the vote, stating that just a handful of employees who need extra space would be receiving it. There is also a school feasibility study whose results have yet to be published and may demonstrate that personnel can be relocated elsewhere.

“We should not be spending $12 million plus interest when it provides only a partial solution to our space needs,” Fitzpatrick said. “Facilities and IT would be housed in this building, and they work significantly in our schools. It makes sense to put them all together.”

Veterans Services, the facilities manager and sustainability coordinator, all of whom currently work out of the Millennium Building, as well as Community Wellness Coordinator Nicole Laviolette, who shares her office with the Animal Control officer, would all move to the new municipal building.

At a Special Town Meeting last fall, residents dismissed the article.

In the aforementioned video, Peraner-Sweet explained that those staffers need to have an “adequate workspace” with updated HVAC and security measures.

“The town has made a commitment to community well-being and mental health,” Peraner-Sweet said. “To fulfill that commitment, we need to provide the community wellness coordinator with a secure, private and closed-door office space where people who seek out her assistance can be assured that their confidentiality and privacy will be respected and maintained.”

Over four previous Town Meetings, residents have supported allocation of more than $900,000 to the needs study and design, Peraner-Sweet said.

Resident Megan Eckroth also voiced her opposition to the measure, stressing that Westford “needs to maintain the buildings we have in town and treasure those buildings.” The town’s nine school buildings need varying degrees of repair or simply don’t offer a “conducive” learning environment, Eckroth said.

“I do not think it is the right time to build a new building,” Eckroth said, “but rather to focus the attention on the buildings that we already have and what we claim to value with our town budget.”

On the meeting room front, resident Doug Burns questioned why meetings aren’t held in auditoriums at Westford Academy, Blanchard Middle School or the library. Burns said new rooms become “dead space that doesn’t get used.”

In response to a question, Select Board Vice Chair Tom Clay said the current meeting space at Town Hall will become an “auxiliary” space.

Terry Stader, a former Veterans Service officer, supported the article. With Afghan and Iraq veterans living in Westford, Stader expressed the need for increased veterans support.

“We need accessibility, we need the privacy,” Stader said. “Shared office space is not the solution that we have at the Millennium Building.”

The proposal also had the

Edward Booth
Napa Valley Register, Calif.
(TNS)

Mar. 25—Three years ago, in January 2020, the city of Napa was well on its way to constructing replacements for its aging downtown offices and public safety hubs.

That plan — approved by the the Napa City Council 4-1 — involved building an entirely new city hall, firehouse and downtown police station on the same city-owned block where the current buildings are, at an estimated cost of $124 million. There were still several difficult steps before construction could start, such as building design and figuring out how the city would finance the construction. But the basic plan, after several years of work and controversy, was in place, and the city was ready to move forward.

No such forward movement has happened since then. The COVID-19 pandemic arrived just two months after that City Council approval, and staff were thrust into more pressing matters, such as deciding how to make steep budget cuts as they grappled with the abrupt halt of Napa’s tourism industry and the related downturn in tax revenues.

As a result, the building replacement project was put on hold. Any lingering possibility of it being realized faded in March 2021, when the city announced they and Los Angeles-based Plenary Group — the infrastructure investment business that had worked with the city on the project since 2017 — had parted ways.

But now, three years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, it won’t be long before the Napa City Council begins to consider potential ways to pursue building replacements once again. The city’s downtown buildings have only continued to age, and the cost to maintain them has only increased with time.

The maintenance costs of the city’s downtown buildings are also significantly higher than they would’ve been had the city not deferred maintenance about 10 years ago when the project for a new city hall was being planned, according to Public Works Director Julie Lucido.

Indeed, the City Council in January recognized the need to respond to the city’s decaying buildings sooner rather than later by making public infrastructure a focus area during the development of the city’s upcoming two-year budget, set to be discussed by the council in June. (The infrastructure category, along with buildings, also includes city streets, sidewalks and other capital improvement projects.)

“When it comes to our buildings, these are 60-year-old buildings,” said Councilmember Liz Alessio at the time. “They don’t meet the needs of our workers of today. We’re going to be homeless as a work force if we have another disaster, another earthquake or something.”

Much of the immediate focus will be on repairing major problems with the city’s current buildings so they’re still usable, according to Lucido.

Proposed work plans will focus on critical facility repairs — such as “failing roofs and electrical systems, repairs to building exteriors and parking structures, and upgrades to security and access,” she said in an email.

“There will be essential repairs to the buildings downtown to ensure we’re able to continue to occupy them,” Lucido wrote. “An example is the need to address roofs on the community services building and city hall to keep water out. There is more need than funding that is available.”

But, Lucido also said that, regardless of the repair efforts, the city will need to figure out future solutions — which will include discussions about potentially replacing the downtown city buildings.

“The city-owned buildings downtown are not suitable to meet the city’s needs into the future due to their age and condition,” Lucido wrote. “A co

Hammonton council members voted to approve the purchase of a $1.6 million fire truck at the Feb. 27 meeting of town council, hammontongazette.com reported.

According to the resolution, the total cost of the 100-foot platform ladder truck is $1.6 million, the report said. The resolution authorizes $1.52 million in debt with an $80,000 down payment.

A fire official said that the ladder truck will be replacing an outdated one and that the estimated time of arrival is the end of 2024 to the beginning of 2025, according to the report.

A city official noted that this truck is the second of two new acquisitions, both expecting to arrive in 2024, the report said.

The city of Grand Rapids plans to buy land and build a new fire station, fox17online.com reported.

The new station will be located at the corner of Kalamazoo Avenue SE and Kendall Street SE, just north of 44th Street. The site lands in the historically-underfunded Third Ward, which has the largest Black population in the city, the report said.

According to city documents, the Grand Rapids Fire Department has monitored metrics in the Third Ward, where performance has been “lagging” since 2015.

The Kalamazoo district of the Third Ward is currently served by a single station, Station 4. Per city documents, Station 4 is called to more emergencies and protects more people than any other unit in Grand Rapids, the report said. It’s also seen a boost in the number of calls it receives, up 5.59% from the previous year.

The Grand Rapids Fire Department has been planning and searching for the right spot for a new fire station since 2022.

The administration is asking Parkersburg City Council to approve spending more than $2.3 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds, which includes $1 million for a ladder truck and $60,000 to pay off the fire department’s burn tower, newsandsentinel.com reported.

The budget revisions are on the council’s agenda for Tuesday night, along with $90,000 to repair the water slide at Southwood Park, $580,000 for two new Sanitation Department packer trucks and $540,000 for new street sweepers, the report said.

A city official told council he was considering a request for equipment purchases using ARPA funds during the recent municipal budget hearings, according to the report.

The money can be spent directly from the city’s ARPA allotment because it’s for public health and public safety, a city official said.

The $1 million for the ladder truck will be supplemented by $275,000 allocated for the purchase in the capital reserve fund and $50,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds, the report said.

A fire official saved the city between $500,000-$700,000 by proposing buying a slightly smaller truck than the city now uses, the report said. It would have the same maximum ladder length of 100 feet but would not have a bucket and platform at the top. The existing truck could be used as a backup and the reduced wear would allow it to remain in service longer.