Public Safety Building Study Committee Chairwoman Jane Patton and committee member Andrew Hogeland at Tuesday's meeting.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Public Safety Building Study Committee on Tuesday voted to ask the Board of Selectmen to negotiate a purchase and sale agreement for the so-called Lehovec property on Main Street.

 

But the committee is not advising that the town jump in with both feet. Rather, it said the P&S agreement should include conditions, including that the property pass seismic tests required of land intended for a public safety facility.

 

The committee was created two years ago to explore possibilities for a joint fire-police station after the Williamstown Fire District fell just short of the votes it needed to approve purchase of the Lehovec site for a new fire station.

 

At two different special Fire District meetings, the proposal to buy the property earned a majority of votes but not the two-thirds "super majority" required to bond the endeavor.

 

At the time of the special Fire District meeting, opponents of the Prudential Committee's request argued that the town could save money by building a joint facility to replace its cramped, outdated fire station (at 34 Water St.) and police station (at the back of Town Hall on North Street).

 

The Public Safety Building Study Committee includes representatives from town government and a representative from the Prudential Committee, which oversees the Fire District, a separate governmental entity apart from town government with its own taxing authority.

 

The committee looked at a number of potential sites and decided with the help of an architectural consultant that the Lehovec site is large enough to hold a joint facility.

 

But the committee stalled when it asked the owners of the property — the estate of Kurt Lehovec — for permission to do test borings to determine the stability of the soils at the site. The estate demanded the town pay a fee to access the land for testing.

 

"Two things happened that made me think we should recruit," said Andrew Hogeland, a member of the committee who, like Chairwoman Jane Patton, also serves on the Board of Selectmen. "The first is I talked to the [Lehovecs'] lawyer and did not come away with a strong sense the Lehovecs were focused on this, cared about this. They seemed to be unmotivated. And there are eight of them because it's an estate. I didn't want to spend $12,000 of town money [for permission to do tests] if I didn't know we had a deal.

 

"The other thing was after we last met, we thought there were two studies we needed to do: one was seismic and the other was wetlands. The Fire District did wetlands, and we have it."

 

And John Notsley, the chairman of the Fire District's three-person Prudential Committee, came out strongly in favor of a joint police-fire facility on Tuesday.

 

"I concur with your assessment, Jane, that the only way this thing is going to fly is as a joint public safety building," Notsley said. "My adage is 'half a loaf is better than none.'

 

"I think the Prudential Committee is frustrated by the lack of progress. We know what this is about because we dealt with the lack of progress for a number of years," he added, alluding to the district's own negotiations with the Lehovecs.

 

Patton agreed that the town/fire district process has not moved as swiftly as she had hoped and said she shared the Prudential Committee's frustration.

 

But there was one discordant note struck at Tuesday's meeting. Charles Fox, a member of the town's Finance Committee who serves on the PSBSC, took exception to the idea that the Lehovec property is the town's "only option."

 

Fox argued that the town should not box itself into a corner and should consider other solutions, including the creation of a substation for the Fire Department in South Williamstown, an idea the Fire District rejects as impractical.

 

While he ultimately joined the rest of the committee in supporting the request to the Selectmen, Fox engaged in a brief debate with Notsley over the idea that the fire district needs a station large enough to accommodate a tanker truck along with its current apparatus.

 

Patton reined the meeting back to the question at hand.

 

"[Notsley] was the first one to adapt to the idea that while there may have been this dream facility ... moving forward and making progress and solving these very real problems is more important," Patton said. "Everyone is going to have to compromise on this deal. Nobody wins if nobody compromises. There won't be anything."

 

And Police Sgt. Scott McGowan, who represents that department on the building committee, pointed out that both public safety departments have been making do with less for too long.

 

"Charlie, your concerns are valid, but if we don't move forward, we'll keep spinning our wheels," McGowan said. "If we don't make a move and put out there, we'll be talking about this for the next 40 years."