Corinth
But following several attempts and hours of planning, Corinth Fire Chief Ed Pospisil and the 23 members of the volunteer department will soon have a new place to call home.
Voters in the town of Corinth last week passed a bond — for the second time this year — to fund a new firehouse on Fairground Road.
“We are just happy it went through and we want to thank the people in the town,” Pospisil said this week.
Since at least 1980, the Corinth Fire Department has operated out of two aging stations — one in the village of East Corinth and the other in the hamlet of Cookeville.
Trucks and equipment aren’t getting any smaller, and the two current stations are bursting at the seams, said Pospisil, who has nearly 40 years of professional experience and has worked to modernize the department by bring in newer trucks and equipment.
In addition, neither of the buildings has running water or indoor plumbing, factors that have proved trying with a diversified field of firefighters.
That will change when workers at Morton Buildings erect a new fire station above the baseball field on Fairground Road, a location in town that is more central than the two existing stations. (The Cookeville station will remain in its current form to provide resources to the west of town; the village station will be closed.)
Plans call for a new four-bay, steel structure that will have ample room for the fire department to grow, Pospisil said.
The building will be built on donated land.
“We are doing this for the future,” he said. Some of the final details are still in the works, he said, but the station will be big enough to house the department’s growing fleet of fire trucks and will have running water and bathrooms.
“Right now, we can’t even wash our equipment … our firefighters have to bring (it) home, which is ridiculous,” Pospisil said.
Voters on July 24 approved an $850,000 bond on a vote of, 221-156, for the project. Voters also approved the bond in May, but the Selectboard received a petition calling for a revote.
Selectboard Chairman Chris Groschner said this week that many people in town know Corinth needs a new fire station, but their qualms came in the form of sticker shock.
“There are a lot of good reasons for building a fire hall,” Groschner said. “The unhappiness in the town is always about the price. But it was pretty clear from the vote that there was serious support for doing this now.”
In 2014, residents in town went through a similar process to vote on a new fire station.
In March of that year, a $1.16 million article passed by only two votes, and on a revote that May, the article failed.
Following the 2014 votes, Pospisil said town officials went back to the drawing board and scaled down the plans.
This week, Pospisil said he wasn’t yet sure what the total cost of the fire house would be, but said it would be within the $850,000 bond amount.
If the entire amount is used, the tax impact would be $37 per $100,000 of evaluation for the first year of the bond, a figure that will decrease over the life of the loan.
“As an investment in our safety and that of our neighbors,” said Selectman Steve Long, “I think that is a very reasonable cost.”
Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.