One alarm fire

Council butts heads over where to put new fire hall

Municipal politics—like all politics, one presumes—often involves spending money on things you didn’t know you needed until a bureaucrat said you did. Such as 42 police officers. New garbage dumps . Or new fire halls.

Shire Hall was thrust into an exercise three years ago to assess how its fire service stacked up against current provincial standards. This was, of course, a trap designed to nudge the municipality to spruce up its fire services.

The County was assured that the inevitable list of shortcomings arising from this exercise was for information purposes only—that it wouldn’t be compelled to address them. That, of course wasn’t true— the municipality, once aware of a deficiency, could not choose to ignore it. The liability exposure would be too great.

About a year ago one of the early recommendations emerging from a committee struck to navigate this fire service renewal process was that changes were needed to the County’s fire halls. Some were worn out; some were in the wrong place.

The committee recommended the closure of fire halls in Consecon, Hillier, Bloomfield, Picton and Hallowell. These would be replaced with two halls—one in Hillier and another in the vicinity of the roundabout at Waring’s Corner. This is known as the nine-hall plan. Muddying the waters considerably, the committee also suggested a 10-hall plan might also be acceptable— including a new station on the Heights overlooking Picton and expanding the current fire hall and municipal building on Mallory Road in Bloomfield.

Last fall council adopted the nine-hall plan over the objections of North Marysburgh Councillor Robert Quaiff, who argued that his residents were being ill-served by the removal of fire services from the Heights, to be relocated on the west side of Picton.

He was assured in that debate that council had not yet determined where the Picton area hall would be located—particularly as the municipality doesn’t own any land in the targeted area.

So it was that a proposal to hire a project manager for the new fire stations project was presented at a committee of council meeting last week. Quaiff said the wording of the RFP (request for proposals) included constructing one of the halls near the traffic circle—proof, said Quaiff, administrators and some on council had already concluded it would be built there.

“Last fall it wasn’t necessarily going there,” said Quaiff. “Then lo and behold the RFP identifies the traffic circle. We in North Marysburgh are not being served properly.”

Mayor Peter Mertens said the hiring of a project manager doesn’t change anything. The municipality doesn’t own land around the traffic circle and it remains council’s decision where it will be located.

But for Sophiasburgh Councillor Terry Shortt, this sounded like backtracking. Shortt was a member of the committee that prepared the recommendations, including the location near the roundabout.

“You are undoing work done by specialists and experts in fire service in our community,” said Shortt. “It was a two-year process. Are we going to start this all over again?”

The committee concluded it would not. It approved the hiring of a project manager.

It seems clear, however, the issue of where the new fire hall is to be built will fester a while longer. While it does so, few are asking whether spending $5 million on two new fire stations is really needed.