TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON, N.J.—Mayor Peter Calamari and Council President Michael DeSena say a failed funding ordinance for the firehouse/EMS facility overhaul is going to be reintroduced at a special council meeting at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 26 and could be passed as soon as Sept. 3.
Note:
- This special meeting, which the township clerk advertised Aug. 21, changes this story from its original version, where Calamari and DeSena had said and posted a week earlier that the measures would be reintroduced at the Sept. 3 regular meeting.
- Also on the Aug. 26 special meeting agenda is the reintroduction of a failed ordinance to give the mayor the power to appoint two alternates to the Planning Board, and a resolution amending the Fire Department bylaws.
The $6 million appropriation, seeking notes of $5.71 million—which fell short on second reading Aug. 12—would fund a two-story, 44-foot-tall fire station and ambulance corps headquarters just east of the current firehouse footprint, at 656 Washington Ave.
Minimum basic needs for the firehouse—erected in 1951 and upgraded in the ‘60s—include bay doors to fit modern trucks, space for volunteers to perform essential primary and support functions, room to store gear, and areas to dress and equip themselves prior to calls.
At last review the project is a two-story 20,338-square-foot structure, of which 13,218 square feet are for the fire department and 5,712 are for the ambulance corps. A pitched roof would be topped with a cupola.
Also on Aug. 12, the council passed a resolution giving Calamari permission to sign an agreement with Bergen County to construct the new Washington Avenue and Pascack Road intersection.
The council has been working on the intersection, commuter parking, and firehouse overhaul as an integrated undertaking.
The firehouse funding ordinance needed four votes to pass. Voting yes were DeSena, Council Vice President Steve Cascio, and member Art Cumming.
Member Bob Bruno, who voted for the measure on introduction July 15, was absent.
Independent Councilman Michael Ullman voted no, saying—as he has at meetings for the past year—that the project, important as it is, strikes him as too big and too expensive.
Ullman, who tells Pascack Press he’s “getting crushed” by public opinion following his vote, questions why there is “almost no” common space for the two services on the drawing board. He calls it “two buildings under one roof.”
At the June 17 council meeting, Ullman said “It’s a mistake to say the new emergency services building is going to cost $6 million. I think the project is going to be above that. That’s the cost of building a shell there. It doesn’t include the cost of the furniture and equipment that would need to go because that was pulled out in the last presentation.”
Ullman told Pascack Press following his vote that he had “suggested the idea that there are opportunities to shrink the building and bring in costs.”
He said, “If they shrunk the building, made it a smaller footprint, leveraged more common space, made it one story… there’s issues.”
Ullman has been calling on architect Robbie Conley—a former Woodbury Heights fire chief and mayor, and the man who designed Montvale’s new firehouse—to shape the project with these concerns more in mind.
Conley defended the relative lack of overlap as operationally important and said he had trimmed costs.
Among these were the contingency percentage—freeing up money for any environmental remediation that might be called for—and estimates on photocopies.
Ullman said pulling furnishings out simply moves those costs, and others related to the project, down the road.
He added that “From my perspective there was no formal council subcommittee involved in the planning.” He noted that DeSena was involved in meetings between Conley and the fire and ambulance units.
“At the end of the day I feel that it’ll be reintroduced when Mr. Bruno is here and I think it’ll be re-voted on, and perhaps it’ll change,” he said.
When it was pointed out that the borough’s bond counsel, in a presentation at the top of the Aug. 12 meeting, had said the municipal bond rates were extremely attractive—and that Calamari had seemed to lead with this as an enticement to act on the project—Ullman concurred.
“I think that’s a very valid approach but just because it’s cheap money doesn’t mean we should lose sight of our responsibilities. The cheap money certainly is there,” he said.
For his part, Bruno told Pascack Press on Aug. 15 that he’d missed the final vote over a work emergency. He said the town’s infrastructure has been crumbling and he would have voted with the majority.
“I know Mike [Ullman] has problems with the redundancy, but the Fire Department is the Fire Department and the Ambulance Corps is the Ambulance Corps, and maybe the Ambulance Corps wants to be independent. I understand that,” he said.
He added, “I have no problems with the building being built [as proposed]. We’ve already spent several hundred thousand dollars on design fees [an estimated $400,000]. We approved it. You’re not about to throw that away.”
If the firehouse is rebuilt it would be the most significant local project undertaken in some time. It would be expected to protect the township and—through mutual aid—its neighbors for the lion’s share of the 21st century.
It also would eclipse and add to debt for new fire apparatus, police radios, and a new municipal facilities headquarters, after claims of neglect surfaced in spring 2017.
Addressing real needs
Conley presented four concepts to the mayor and council Aug. 6, 2018 on fixing problems he found in operations for firefighting, administration, and livability at the firehouse.
He gave estimates of $4 million for a minimal update to the firehouse to approximately $6 million for a joint firehouse/EMS facility.
Calamari had said of Conley’s initial presentation, “This is just a possibility for a design that would work so that we could put a dollar amount to it. It’s a conceptual design, not necessarily a design you would take.”
Two days later, Aug. 8, 2018 the Volunteer Ambulance Corps ratified a vote to leave their headquarters, at 354 Hudson Ave., and pitch in with the fire department.
DeSena said at the time that he found Conley’s firehouse presentation to be “terrific” and predicted the council would back one of the concepts given.
“We absolutely need a major update, an overhaul, at the firehouse. One of those concepts has to be implemented,” DeSena said.
Should the corps move, DeSena said, its current site would be pressed into service providing needed parking for the Golden Seniors and others at town hall.
Moreover, he said the town is working with Seasons Catering to create a new commuter parking lot on the northwest corner of the intersection.
The idea is to provide the fire and ambulance volunteers “complete use of their parking lot,” he said.
Firefighters call for action
Firefighters have attended every public session on the project, and the Aug. 12 council meeting was no exception.
Former Fire Chief James Zaconie, a resident here for 57 years and a department veteran of 44 years, spoke at the public microphone to urge passage.
He recounted the firehouse’s origins from 1951 when it was built “as a three-bay garage with a flat roof, to 1951 standards” and upgraded in 1966 with two additional bays of similar design, as well as a second story.
He said that his crews are exposed to the elements, including rain and snow, as they dress under an open bay door for emergency calls at all hours.
“Now, we save this township approximately $2 million a year by providing volunteer fire services. And we deserve better than that,” he said.
After the vote was read and council moved on with the agenda, the firefighters filed out into the night, presumably to comment on the development.
Mayor says plan good to go
Asked Aug. 14 whether any changes are under consideration, Calamari told Pascack Press “Not at this time. After working with the departments and the architect we feel it’s a good plan as-is.”
On Facebook, he promised to have the reintroduction Sept. 3 and the final vote Sept. 16. [Update: The reintroduction has since been moved to a special meeting on Monday, Aug. 26.]
In a joint statement, DeSena and Calamari told Pascack Press, “We made conscientious efforts to keep progress moving forward while addressing and considering the needs of our FD/EMT and the concerns of our taxpayers.”
They added, “Budgets and plans take time and the concessions that have been made have taken all of this into consideration. The fact that members of our council still find reasons to be absent from essential meetings or vote no for this emergency services project, the firehouse, is outright appalling.”
They said, “We have spent over a year working diligently on the plans for the corner and a new emergency services building with architects and finance experts as well as members of the Fire Department and Ambulance Corps.”
“Our goal,” they said, “was always to provide a state-of-the-art building that could stand the test of time as not only a safe and sound structure but a practical and fiscally smart investment for our town. We were presented with residents’ concerns on the scope and cost of the building.”
The officials said the firefighters and ambulance corps agreed to reduce the size of the building, have smaller multipurpose rooms, and reduce the number of bays they had sought.
They said a system for truck exhaust “will finally be provided” and that new traffic signals and lights outside the firehouse—synchronized with trucks coming and going—will add to safety and efficiency improvements.
They added, “There is no doubt we did our due diligence when it came to getting our finances in check. We hired a grant writer; however, no grants for emergency services buildings are available at this time. Be assured if grants become available, we will apply for them.”