WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The chair of the Fire District's Building Committee last week pushed the Prudential Committee to finalize a contract with the architects chosen to design a new station on Main Street.

 

"We're desperately waiting for this contract to be signed because we are falling behind," Elaine Neeley told the Prudential Committee at its January meeting. "We really need to get to the next phase of it. They've pretty much completed the phase we contracted for.

 

"In the next phase, they will be able to get the green engineer and some of the subcontractors on board with information we really need about the direction we're going in."

 

Prudential Committee Chair John Notsley had begun the January meeting by expressing his disappointment that the final contract with Pittsfield's EDM and Mitchell Associates, the partnership chosen by the Building Committee after a search process that concluded in August, has not been completed.

 

"We had a meeting on [Jan. 19] with the lawyers of the two principals, our lawyer and their lawyer," Notsley said at the Prudential Committee's Jan. 26 virtual meeting. "Unfortunately, it's a long, drawn-out affair, but we did get a great deal accomplished at the meeting on the 19th because it's the first time the two lawyers have gotten together."

 

Without going into details on the negotiations, Notsley indicated that, in part, an insurance issue has been holding up the process.

 

"I don't know what the holdup is now, but I'd suggest we get whatever assistance we need, whether we need to bring other people to the table to resolve this," Neeley said.

 

"We're already a couple of months back from where we should be. It's really holding us up."

 

Notsley said he hopes to be able to call a special meeting of the committee before its next monthly meeting on Feb. 23 to approve the contract.

 

"I'm not suggesting we wait until the next meeting," he said.

 

Neeley shared some news with the Prudential Committee about progress on the building project. The Building Committee has received bids for geotechnical work on the Main Street (Route 2) property the district purchased for purposes of replacing its aging, cramped station on Water Street.

 

Neeley said the two lowest bids for the geotech work were received through the district's architect. The committee had hoped to find a firm on its own in order to avoid paying a 10 percent surcharge from the architect.

 

"But the two low bids include the fee," she said. "It was a nice outcome in that we'll have the architectural team to supervise them as well."

 

Last week's Prudential Committee meeting also included the annual report from the district's audit.

 

Billie Jo Sawyer of Sawyer LLC in North Adams reported that the district again received a clean report from her firm. District Treasurer Corydon Thurston also informed the committee that Sawyer is transitioning to a different firm that does not do municipal accounting, so the district needs to find a new accountant for its fiscal 2022 audit.

 

"We will hopefully have a report with three competitive proposals for you at the February meeting," Thurston said.

 

In other business on Wednesday, the committee created a new position of records officer for the district and appointed clerk Sarah Currie to the role.

 

"We've had several requests for public records, which is not a problem," Prudential Committee Ed Briggs said. "We're willing to share them, but we need to make sure we're doing it correctly.

 

"There are things we cannot give – license numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, right off the bat. What we can try to do is put in place a program whereby we provide responses within the required time frame."

 

The records officer will be the person in the district charged with running information past its counsel before satisfying requests for information, Briggs said.

 

Chief Craig Pedercini shared with the committee positive updates on the training of new recruits to the call-volunteer fire department.

 

"The six new hires we talked about last month have all been geared up and are responding to calls," Pedercini said.

 

In addition, the department has an opportunity to send those recruits and others to a weekly training program that begins in late February.

 

"I've got a potential nine people – six new [Williams College] students, one student who has been on for a couple of years and two new members from the town who joined in December," Pedercini said. "That gives me a total of nine taking the class.

 

"I'm excited about it. If those kids all go through this and complete it, they'll be in a position that no other students have been at this early point in time. So they'll be a lot more useful to us."