City Property?

The "Buildings, Parks, and Personnel" committee met tonight at one of the buildings that recently was vacated downtown. As I've written, we have considered constructing a building to house (most urgently) the fire department, the police department, and perhaps the city administrative offices. The cost of constructing a new building would be at least $200,000 -- lots of money for a small town.

One of the local businessmen, Scott, who owns a hardware store, purchased his only competitor in town earlier this year. While he's going to keep some of the property acquired through the purchase, he has offered to sell the main office building to the city. It includes a warehousing area that would more than accommodate our fire department -- we have two fire engines, a tanker truck, and a service truck. There's a "First Responder" car as well. All of the fire vehicles must be in a heated garage (because water freezes) they must also have power nearby in order to keep the various electronic devices charged up.

The building includes space, not only for the fire equipment, but also for the police department. We would have to segment the office space in such a way that the police offices would be isolated from the fire offices, but that doesn't appear to be difficult. Cost, of course, is a consideration, but the Rural Fire Fund and the Building Fund combined equal more than $70,000. The building will cost about $30,000 -- leaving another $30,000 or so for basic renovations. While expensive, it's not nearly as expensive as the $200,000+ estimated for totally new construction. Additional construction would permit us to house the city administrative offices in the future.

The city board will meet Monday night and it seems that the BPP chairman will move to purchase the building (Scott wants to close before January 1 for tax purposes). As most board members were present at the committee meeting tonight and all present seemed to favor the purchase, it's pretty obvious that the motion will pass.