North Adams Council OKs Borrowing to Fix Fire Hydrants
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The City Council on Tuesday authorized borrowing $300,000 to fix approximately 55 fire hydrants that were found to be inoperative.
"What you have before you tonight is a plan for an immediate repair project to accelerate the replacement of the hydrants that we are identifying based on both where the location of missing or inoperative hydrants are, as well as trying to make sure that we're doing this in the most strategic and protected way that we can," said Mayor Thomas Bernard. "This will allow us to catch up on work that has not been done, I am accountable for that."
The status of the city's fire hydrants came to the fore after firefighters struggled with nonfunctioning ones at two fires within about a week of each other. A further review found about 55 out of service, less than had been expected based on efforts over the past decade to repair and replace nearly half of the city's 631 fireplugs.
However, officials and residents were alarmed at having hydrants not working at two serious structure fires — so much so that the Fire Department called in a neighboring department's tanker truck at a third fire as a precaution.
The mayor's proposal was to fix all of them at one fell swoop. He estimated the cost at about $5,000 to $6,000 apiece if the project was bid out.
"The unknown there is what happens when an inoperative hydrant is removed, and we go below street level, if you will, and if there are if there are additional infrastructure repairs that need to be done in order to ensure the hydrant is functional," he said.
The mayor said there is a recommitment at all levels to keeping up on maintenance, communication and policies and procedures between departments.
The vote on the borrowing was unanimous but an ordinance submitted by Councilor Jason LaForest create a hydrant division went down 7-2. Only Councilor Marie T. Harpin joined LaForest in voting against filing the proposed ordinance.
The General Government Committee last week had voted to recommend fiing based on feedback from the city solicitor and that a plan was already being put in place. Chairwoman Lisa Blackmer said the city already has set policies and procedures in place for operation, maintenance and record keeping of the water system, including the fire hydrants. The city also puts out an annual report that has information about the hydrant system.
The measure would have created a fire hydrant division, required twice a year inspections, and set a time limit for reporting to multiple entities of any out-of-service fireplugs.
Hydrants are currently overseen by the Water Department at the direction of the commissioner of public services, who is given authority in city ordinance.
"Other cities and towns have have more in-depth ordinances about fire safety and fire ordinances," said Harpin. "I know that the mayor is bringing something in, but I'm just wondering if we could do both, moving forward together in a progressive way to make sure things are in the right place, and people are connecting and communicating properly."
LaForest and Harpin said they saw numerous instances of fire hydrant ordinances in other communities. General Government members last week said they had looked examples provided but didn't see anything specifically related to creating a new division to deal with hydrants.
"I want to clarify that this was not to create a new department it was create a new division within the Department of Public Services modeled after our existing ordinances throughout the establishment of the Department of Public Services, which is not telling the mayor what to do," said LaForest, continuing, "there was the concern that we can't flush all of our hydrants because flushing gets into overtime. And we don't want to budget that. Well, we've seen what happens when we don't take this seriously. And we push off the burden year after year after year."
There was no obligation in ordinance for anyone to take responsibility, he said.
Blackmer responded that an ordinance wasn't a "magic bullet" because the city has ordinances now that aren't being followed.
"You can make all the laws you want but enforcement is the issue. And we are not the enforcer," she said, referring to council. It would be up to whoever is mayor, or public service chief or fire chief; if they don't follow the ordinance, it doesn't happen. "It doesn't matter what we've done in the ordinance other than we've made a few people feel like we're doing something. I would rather actually do the work and get it done."
LaForest said his point was that there is no accountability.
"The City Council and the residents of North Adams deserve to have this information in a timely fashion as to the employees," he said. "I've heard a lot of excuses. But the fact of the matter is that ordinances intended to protect the city and the residents were summarily dismissed without any consideration without any tweaking without any revision without any recommendations."
The objections to timely reporting and a failure to even tweak the proposal was "absolutely absurd," he said, and that he was "extremely disappointed in the General Government Committee."
Blackmer said her committee and three other councilors attended the meeting, two of them providing comment. Maybe there was miscommunication, she said, but they didn't feel they got a lot of feedback from LaForest.
Councilor Keith Bona suggested that by filing it, a different ordinance more in line with what other communities had done possibly could be submitted.
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