Williamstown Public Safety Group Finds No Option to Combine Police, Fire Facilities
Police Sgt. Scott McGowan said the police station is 'disgusting' and in desparate need of replacement.
The panel Tuesday decided to ask the Board of Selectmen to give the committee a new focus: developing a plan for a new police station.
After years of analysis, the committee reluctantly concluded that the town has no viable option for a combined police and fire facility and should turn its attention to replacing the outdated and inadequate police station, currently housed at Town Hall.
The committee was formed in 2013 to look at whether town government could join forces with the Williamstown Fire District, a separate taxing authority, on a combined facility. In fall 2013, the Fire District failed to win voter approval for the purchase of a Main Street parcel where fire officials hoped to build a station to replace their own cramped, outdated facility.
That same parcel, owned by the estate of Kurt Lehovec, was one of several potential properties studied by the Public Safety Building group, which concluded it was the only workable property for a joint facility.
Unfortunately for the town, it was unable to reach a deal with the estate.
"The Lehovec thing, if they don't want to work with us — that is off the table," Chairwoman Jane Patton said on Tuesday. "If that is off the table, we are unaware of a suitable piece of land. If anyone wants to tell us one, we're happy to hear it."
Patton kicked off the meeting by saying she still believed in the idea of a joint facility, but the conversation quickly turned when Sgt. Scott McGowan, who represents the Police Department on the committee, made a plea for the town to abandon the one-building solution.
"The combination building, police and fire was economically the best opportunity and would be a better sell to the community," McGowan said. "But by no fault of this committee, it's my personal belief we have absolutely exhausted that opportunity.
"I would like to thank [Patton] and Mr. [Andy] Hogeland for the work you did trying to facilitate that with the Lehovecs. I'm sure it was incredibly frustrating. With that said, I believe the Lehovec property was the only site [for a combined facility]. I think it would have been the best site."
Now, McGowan said, the town needs to move forward on plans to replace the police station — plans, he said, that have been on the books for 40 years.
"I can tell you, as the department's investigator, I'm tired of apologizing to victims of serious crimes that the first impression of the Williamstown Police Department is this facility," he said. "This building is disgusting, and it shocks me not only as an employee but as a resident that that's what we offer to this town. Two-thirds of the time, people with disabilities cannot access this police station. I cannot believe in 2016, an individual requiring the use of a wheelchair cannot access our station.
"Running a community costs money. I do not have children, but I supported the construction of a new high school. Like everyone else, I am not happy or excited about my tax bill going up [for the Mount Greylock building project], but it is for the betterment of the community. Constructing a new police station is for the betterment of the community."
John Notsley, who represents the Fire District on the committee, agreed with McGowan's assessment that the time has come for each municipal entity to find its own solution to its aging facilities.
Notsley declined to say what path would be chosen by the Prudential Committee, which oversees the Fire District, other than to say that for now it will just have to do the best it can with the cramped facility on Water Street.
Notsley did at one point imply that the town was low-balling on the Lehovec site, for which the Prudential Committee previously had a purchase-and-sale agreement in place.
"What did the town offer?" Notsley asked Hogeland, like Patton, a member of the Board of Selectmen.
"I'm not prepared to say," Hogeland said.
"I heard what you offered, and I would have refused it also," Notsley said.
"Then there's no reason for me to say," Hogeland replied.
In 2013, the Fire District had a purchase-and-sales agreement in place for $575,000 to acquire the 3.7-acre parcel. It tried at two separate special Fire District meetings to win voter approval of the bond to purchase the land. Each time a majority of voters favored acquisition, but the district did not reach the two-thirds "super majority" threshold it needed.
On Tuesday evening, Hogeland said the Lehovec site is currently on the market for "around $630,000 to $650,000."
"We did, as a select board, try to move forward with the Lehovecs," said Patton, with Hogeland, a member of the Selectmen. "They were not at all interested. It was a non-starter as far as they were concerned."
The last holdout on the committee for continuing to pursue a combined facility site was Finance Committee member Charles Fox. Fox said Tuesday the committee should take another look at the McClelland Press site on North Street.
But both Notsley and McGowan dismissed that idea out of hand, noting it sits on "the most dangerous curve in town" and was an illogical site for emergency vehicles.
Ann McCallum, an architect and Planning Board member who serves on the committee, said she had done some preliminary drawings for a combined facility on the McClelland site and that it was possible but any such facility would have been cramped.
McCallum even said she had concerns about the Lehovec property, given that part of it is in the 500-year floodplain, but she agreed it was the only site in town that met the committee's key criteria for a combined facility: large enough to accommodate the police and fire departments, near the center of town and available for purchase.
McCallum moved that the committee rechristen itself the New Police Station Study Committee, a motion that Hogeland suggested she modify to ask the Board of Selectmen, which created the public safety building committee, to do the rebranding.
The committee voted, 5-0, to approve that motion.
One approach for the committee going forward was suggested on Tuesday by McGowan. He encouraged the town to look back to a police station project conceived by now retired Town Manager Peter Fohlin several years ago.
McGowan said the plan, which involves acquiring a small piece of land adjacent to Town Hall from Williams College, makes sense. And he argued that opposition to the proposal was senseless.
"As you'll recall, that was met with opposition and some of that opposition was that this is open land … and concern about what a police station would look like at our gateway, Field Park," McGowan said. "I'm offended anyone would consider the Williamstown Police Department an embarrassment to the community. I find this piece of land an astoundingly unremarkable piece of land in the community — land that is currently owned by Williams College, which can do anything they want with it.
"I'm overwhelmingly confident that building an extension off this building can done and make an attractive use of that open land."
Tags: fire station, police station, public safety buildings,
