The special Thursday, April 19 meeting of the Rochester Board of Selectmen was a time to test the persuasive argument skills of department heads promoting their Town Meeting Warrant capital spending articles hoping for positive recommendations from selectmen and the Finance Committee.
There were a number of articles for capital purchases that night, but the heftiest price tag of $497,000 went to the Fire Department’s proposal for a new pumper.
Fire Chief Scott Weigel said the pumper is probably the most important truck for the RFD given that Rochester severely lacks fire hydrants in most sections of town, and the 30 or so year-old pumper they have now is beyond any sustainable repair.
Weigel said with the town expanding and with larger houses built, he needs to increase the water capacity and, as for the pumper, “I can’t patch the truck anymore.”
The new pumper would be “nothing fancy,” Weigel said, just a work truck with no custom cab.
“I just find it to be very expensive,” said Finance Committee Chairman Kristian Stoltenberg. “Your position is there’s no alternative. This is what we have to get?” he asked Weigel.
Right, he said, and the one he’s proposing meets the needs of his department.
Selectman Greenwood Hartley, voted as chairman that night, said he’d explored cheaper pre-owned options on the Internet and said the Town could spend $200,000 less on a used pumper only two or three years old.
Selectman Brad Morse and Weigel both adopted the position that buying another used pumper would be “buying someone else’s problem,” and that there must be a good reason why a pumper would be up for sale only after such a short time.
But Hartley insisted one could fine “gems” on the Internet as alternatives.
“I know it’s a big item, but it’s something we don’t replace very often,” said Weigel. “And the amount of manpower that I have off the bat, to be able to get the equipment there … set up a water supply,” he said, a new pumper with an additional 1,000-gallon increase in capacity is what the job calls for, given the precariousness of getting water to a fire fast enough with limited firefighters.
“From a Finance Committee view,” Stoltenberg said, “I need to get educated because this is one heck of an expensive piece of equip… I’m trying to think of how we’ve been fighting fires all these years without this.”
“We have one. We’ve always had one,” stated a number of people inside the room all at once.
“If you don’t show up with a reasonable amount of water … a thousand gallons can sometimes mean the difference between you knocking [a fire] down or not,” said Selectman Paul Ciaburri, who once was a firefighter.
During the meeting, Weigel also advocated for $70,000 for a new truck and plow for the Highway Department to assist in bad weather , an article that came up just after one from the School department asking for $25,400 for technology upgrades at Rochester Memorial School to replace computers, many of which are eight years old, prompting Finance Committee member David Arancio to comment, “If we’re talking about RMS using eight-year-old computers and we’re talking a $21,000 article, I’d like to be fair to every department…”
Hartley thanked Weigel for bringing up the new pumper back in October instead of springing it on the Town later. Before Weigel left, Hartley suggested one last time, “But don’t give up looking for a gem. You might find one!”
The Police Department was looking for a recommendation for $31,000 to arm the department with Tasers and provide related technology and training, and another $17,000 to be spread over five years for participation in an assurance program to insure and protect the new equipment, which seemed to garner the support of FinCom and the selectmen.
“It’s a good investment,” said Police Chief Paul Magee, advocating on behalf of the assurance program. “I think when they’re used, they’re used in usually very bad situations so the likelihood of damage is certainly there.”
Other articles presented included a generator for the Town Hall to keep computer servers and sump pumps working during power outages. Facilities Manager Andrew Daniel said extensive flooding happened back in March, and Magee added that official emails and alerts couldn’t be sent or received via official town emails when the servers are down, creating a problem. The natural gas-powered generator will cost $12,000 and another article to waterproof the basement was proposed for $31,000. The selectmen and the FinCom also considered a request from Weigel for an extractor to properly wash and decontaminate firefighter gear at $20,600 and $4,000 from the tax collector for an automated mail stuffer machine.
Another article discussed but not particularly appealing to the selectmen or the Finance Committee was $12,500 proposed by the Board of Assessors for the five-year review that Assessor Jana Cavanaugh said is currently undertaken in-house, but five years from now, “The likelihood of us having to do this is very high.”
Most towns do outsource their re-certification review because they don’t have the staff qualified to do it in-house like Rochester currently does, Cavanaugh said.
After some discussion, the FinCom and selectmen agreed that the Town could probably take the risk and address it later if needed.
Other articles included creating additional stabilization funds for various departments and areas of spending.
The next two regular meetings of the Rochester Board of Selectmen were scheduled for Monday, April 23 at 7:00 pm, and Monday, May 7 at 6:00 pm, both at the Rochester Town Hall.
Rochester Board of Selectmen
By Jean Perry