Alna Facilities Planning Committee

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Date: November 26,2007

Time: 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM

Location: Alna Firehouse

Meeting Minutes:

Alna Facilities Planning Committee Meeting of November 26, 2007, held at the Firehouse at 7 p.m.

Present: Tom Albee (TA), Nick Caristo (NC), Gordon Davis (GD), John Green (JG), Fred Gumkowski (FG), Brian Lawrence (BL), Kathy Pendleton (KP) and Cliff Russell(CR)

Also present:   Mike Trask and Roger Whitney from the AVFD

The first hour of the meeting was devoted to a discussion with Tim Pellerin, Emergency Management Director for Lincoln Co.   At the committee’s request, Mr. Pellerin spoke and answered questions about the implications of emergency management needs for the design of any new space for the AVFD, referencing Maine title 37-B.   His message was that the design should take into account three primary town needs, applying with special force to the first 7 to 10 days of expectable disruption from, for example, a severe ice storm followed by very cold temperatures:

·        Maintaining continuity of town government, including the operation of the town clerk and meetings of the Selectmen, Planning and School Boards;

·        Providing secure, indoor space for storage and distribution of food, water and medicine;

·        Providing temporary housing for VFD members and possibly some of their family members.

He discouraged the committee from thinking of the firehouse as a general shelter for town citizens, stressing that the requirements for shelter certification are complex and involve the provision of extensive facilities.   He also noted that part of his job is to open, as seems necessary, such shelters in predesignated schools and community centers around the county.   He differentiated a “warming shelter” from a general one and said that such a use would be practical and desirable.   The warming shelter would be equipped to provide warm food and drink and just warm space for temporary use, but would not be equipped to provide over night lodging.   KP opined that the space necessary to host current and likely future town meeting crowds, currently estimated by the committee to be about 1600 sq. ft. would be more that sufficient to meet the requirements listed by Mr. Pellerin.

After Mr. Pellerine’s departure, the committee and the VFD visitors turned to the next steps in assessing the major alternatives for meeting the fire department’s space needs:

• Enlargement and modification of the existing firehouse as proposed in the spring by Les Fossel.   The VFD is working on a list of specific questions about the details of this proposal and is consulting with outside experts to make sure that they are seeing all the items that should be questioned.   This list will be given to the committee, which will investigate further and, as necessary, pass them on to Les, with a request for responses/answers.   (As noted below, the committee’s next meeting is now scheduled for December 10^th, and the VFD undertook to try to have a preliminary list to us before that date.   In any case, they promised the complete list within a month at the latest.)
• A new firehouse across route 218. JG and NC will continue to work on the programmatic design of this building and on its costing
• A new, multi purpose building along the lines of the March proposal of the Bowers’ committee.   This will be evaluated at the committee’s next meeting in light of the report, introduced at the last meeting in October, suggesting that town government functions, town meetings excepted, could be accommodated within a modest (500 sq. ft.) addition to the current office building.

The committee noted that its next scheduled meeting date, December 3^rd, has been chosen as the night of the Alna informational presentation on the Wiscasset bypass draft environmental impact statement.   We therefore decided to reschedule our meeting to December 10^th, same time and place.

The meeting adjourned at 9:30 p.m.

Clifford Russell