North West Fire District officials have stressed the importance of their July 1 deadline for a low-interest loan, but the village of Baldwinsville board of trustees is saying, “Not so fast.”
At its June 18 meeting, the board reversed its June 4 decision granting the NWFD an exemption from the Planned Development District zoning.
“Some of the information that we have been given we have since been led to believe by other people is inaccurate,” Mayor Dick Clarke said of the board’s reasoning for rescinding its approval of the zone exemption.
Although he would not say who led the board members to believe the NWFD had misled them, Clarke said the board took issue with a handful of aspects of the district’s proposal.
Clarke called the proposal’s timeline a “forced process” due to the time constraints of the district’s application for a U.S. Department of Agriculture Community Facilities Program loan.
“We can’t proceed until we are sure what we’re looking at,” he said.
Trustee Rick Presley said he was uncomfortable with the fire district’s timeline.
“This buys us the time to do our due diligence,” Presley said. “We were not given the timeline to do that.”
Clarke said the board’s main concern with the district’s proposal is the lack of alternate locations for the new station.
“We felt maybe they didn’t look into them in enough detail,” Clarke said.
At a June 1 public presentation, district representatives said they looked into several other sites, including a property on East Oneida Street, a former dollar store in the village and possible sites on Route 48.
According to Clarke, the current Station 3 on Elizabeth Street may not have as many problems as the fire district indicated. NWFD representatives have cited limited space and an inadequate water system as ongoing issues for Station 3.
“We don’t know if it was miscommunication or if it wasn’t quite as bad as they made it sound,” Clarke said.
Clarke said many of the points of the NWFD’s proposal are “not cut-and-dried,” such as the claims of reduced response times and improved ISO ratings, but the board wants to look into the district’s claims before moving forward in the process.
“I don’t think that this decision tonight impacts public safety immediately,” Clarke said.
Trustee Mark Wilder said the board planned to meet with the NWFD to gather additional information.
Just two days after the board’s decision to rescind its approval, neighbors spotted fire district personnel moving dirt and clearing trees with a backhoe on the Smokey Hollow Road site, directly behind the homes of some of the proposal’s more vocal opponents.
Clarke said a few residents stopped by his home to inform him of the activity.
“They do own the property,” Clarke said, but he added that the district’s actions were ill-timed. “For them to go in two days later was kind of surprising.”
NWFD Chief Tom Perkins said the allegation that the district intended to remove trees Saturday was “misinformation.” He said the district had received a report that youths had dug a trench to use as a bike race track, so the firefighters were leveling out the earth to prevent injuries.
Clarke said a resident told him she had called to report smoke coming from the trees at the district’s property on Smokey Hollow Road, but he’s still waiting on a police report about the incident.
“They got a little overzealous and started removing brush,” Perkins said. “It was a misunderstanding — it was not the beginning of World War III.”
Clarke said a member of the BVFC who lives in the area put a stop to the brush-clearing, but there are still broken trees on the property.
Clarke said one of the fire commissioners called him to apologize for the incident, which “got everybody riled up, not surprisingly.”
He said he told the commissioner that the district should have informed the residents before filling in the trench given the controversy surrounding the proposed Smokey Hollow station.
“I’m sure they were questioning their motives,” Clarke said of the residents’ reaction. “I don’t want to believe the fire department would have [ulterior] motives.”
Clarke said he has been impressed by the civility expressed by both the residents and the fire district throughout the discussion of the proposal.
“I’m very proud of our people and I hope with their cooperation and the board we can come to the right resolution as to whether there should be a fire station there,” he said.
