Fire Station 1
I have been attending community meetings and speaking with many residents about FS1, including abutters and potential abutters.
I support our firefighters and the construction of a new Fire Station, ASAP. I believe the overwhelming majority of Westwood residents do as well.
I commend the work of the FS1 Steering Committee and I appreciate the residents willing to step up and serve, and the good work they are doing on our behalf.
However, I am concerned that the Town is “starting over,” in earnest, without having learned everything there is to learn from its failed FS1 effort last year, which I will call “Round One.”
I understand that over $3 million was spent on Round One. I would like to squeeze every last thing of value from those tax dollars, and salvage and re-use everything which is salvageable and re-useable, before we cast Round One aside.
The Town still does not know exactly why voters rejected its proposal in Round One, and appears to be moving forward with Round Two, asking to spend significant amounts of money, based on assumptions and guesses.
I appreciate the urgency of the situation and am reminded of it now, daily, when driving past the new temporary structure on High Street.
Nevertheless, I would like to see a PAUSE on further work until a true community-wide survey is conducted. This is not to assign blame or to point fingers, but to collect actual data, data which would inform next steps and, specifically, the scope of Round Two.
The most important question to ask residents would be: WHY, exactly, did you vote no? Cost? Size? Location? Process? Something else? Next, I would ask, what, specifically, would it have taken for you to vote YES? Finally, I would ask, how would you like the Town to proceed? Edit the existing plan? Start over from scratch? Hire a new construction firm? Find new sites? Work with the existing site?
Based on my conversations with residents, I believe (though, without the data, my guess is as good as anyone’s) that Round One failed primarily because the Town did not do the work of building community consensus. The Town failed to listen to residents and dismissed their concerns. Similarly, it failed to effectively engage with dissenters to identify and address their concerns, which led these dissenters to organize and ultimately successfully rally their supporters to vote against the project.
I also believe (although, without the data, can’t know for sure) that many residents objected to the price tag of the project. It was not clear why our fire station project would cost so much more than comparable fire station projects completed in neighboring communities.
I also believe that residents would like more transparency surrounding the public bidding process, specifically, how and why the Town continues to hire the same project management firm.
I also believe that many residents objected to the overall size of the project and felt that the design was bigger, and included too many “extras,” than necessary.
Finally, I believe that most residents, including abutters, did not object to building the new station on the current site of FS1.
As a taxpayer, I do not support going back to the drawing board and evaluating, anew, 8 potential sites, with all the costs, and community unrest, that this entails, without first collecting the data to prove or reject the above hypotheses.
A final thought re: process
Fourteen residents volunteered to serve on the FS1 Steering Committee, Round Two. Nine were selected, including the spouse of a current Select Board member. I do not support appointing a family member while turning away other community volunteers.