Mass. Town Back to Drawing Board on New Fire Station

May 22--SANDWICH -- Just two weeks after voters soundly defeated a proposed $30 million public safety complex, town leaders will discuss what went wrong and how they can meet the needs of the police and fire departments.

At 7 p.m. Thursday at Sandwich Town Hall, selectmen will hold a workshop with members of the task force that helped consultants craft the plan for a $27 million police and fire headquarters on Quaker Meetinghouse Road and a $3 million fire substation at Sandwich High School.

At town meeting earlier this month, the project won a narrow majority but not the two-thirds required to borrow money. Voters thought the proposal was too costly, that no alternatives had been put on the table and that some parts of town were left vulnerable.

Both the police station and fire headquarters were built decades ago when the town and the departments were smaller. The two buildings are also perilously close to the town's bayside marshes, which is threatened by another expensive problem for the town to fix -- the eroding dune system at Town Neck Beach.

"The problem is not going to solve itself, and it needs to be solved," Selectman James Pierce, chairman of the board, said Tuesday. "We might as well buckle down and do it."

Pierce said two things doomed the project -- the price and a growing concern among residents who live in the historic village and Town Neck that the fire department was being moved too far away from those areas. The two areas have the town's oldest homes and are the closest together, he said.

"That will have to be a factor in what we do," Pierce said.

Selectman Frank Pannorfi, who was the lone board member against the project, said another factor contributed to its demise.

The group that worked with consultants was predisposed to a joint public safety building and tried to sell the project rather than seeking and using feedback to come up with an alternative, he said.

"We need to do more listening before we have a final product," he said.

Pannorfi said he hopes Thursday's meeting will put the town on a path to forming a new committee with more representation from selectmen and also voices from three distinct sections of town -- East Sandwich, South Sandwich and the historic village.

Both Pierce and Pannorfi said the town's aging population should be taken into consideration in any proposal. At present, 24 percent of the town's population is 60 or older, Pierce said. By 2020, that's projected to grow to nearly 40 percent.

"We have an emergency medical department that also puts out fires," he said about the fire department.

The town needs to consider those demographics and that it may require hiring additional firefighter/EMTs in the future, Pannorfi said. All of it has to be done keeping in mind that Sandwich residential taxpayers are saddled with the bulk of the tax burden, he said.

"We need to be open to different ideas," Pannorfi said.

Copyright 2013 - Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass.