Local leaders and the Poland Volunteer Fire Company are discussing the idea of creating a new fire district to provide protection to the area. Officials started the process when they decided to build a new station to replace the last one, which was damaged in a fire. However, there were concerns about the legality of the project. But as Cara Thomas reports, many of those concerns have been put to rest.
POLAND, N.Y. -- The Poland Volunteer Fire Company lost their main station back in June, after a fire caused significant smoke damage in the building and damaged several of their trucks and other equipment.
"That was a tough time because nobody knew what to do and you still need to provide fire service around the clock,” said Poland Mayor Lance Bennett.
The fire company was forced to quickly come up with a temporary solution and began operating out of a warehouse. But they couldn't operate out of there for long, as the warehouse has no heat.
"The fire trucks need to be warm plain and simple, if they're not and they freeze up during the wintertime then people don't get their fire protection and then lives could be impacted,” said Poland Fire Chief Scot Burritt.
For years the fire company had expressed the desire to build a new fire station that would better meet their needs. They decided to push up that plan... And build that station now. However, the property where they started building the station is outside village limits and in the town of Russia.
"The only reason the village questioned a lot of things was as you've seen tonight, the legal issues we have to uphold the laws of the state of New York whether we like them or not,” Bennett said.
On Tuesday night a special meeting was held, where the attorney who has now been hired by the village, shed some light on the issues.
"Could tax payer money be used to build a fire building outside of the village for use by the volunteer fire company, that's the question, I haven't found. I've only worked on it a few days, but I haven't found a clear answer to that,” said Kenneth Ayres, the attorney.
However, Ayres says he doesn't see an issue with the fire company building the station in the new location, if they self-fund it.
"I think the situation here is just a lack of communication and I think it was caused mostly by the emergency situation that was created by the fire building in town catching on fire and not being usable,” Ayres said.
Moving forward the discussion will surround the future of the fire company. Ayres presented them with the option to look into creating a joint fire district -- involving all municipalities who contract with the fire company.
Meanwhile, the attorney representing the fire company itself suggests creating a fire district involving the village of Poland and the village of Cold Brook.
"They're two different options and we need to look at those options and see which one plays out best,” Burritt said.
Officials say creating a fire district will be a long process, but believe it is necessary to improve the fire operations for future generations.
Tests have been done on the old fire station, all saying the building was safe. The village is still trying to determine what they are allowed to do with that building.