By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
Taylor Mill Commission held another special meeting last week, and the agenda included selecting a design/build RFQ, or request for quotes, for the new firehouse from among the four company responses the city received in early June.
As usual, a crowd of a little more than 25 people gathered in the audience, but this time, as the residents began to speak, it became apparent that some people in the city want to build a new firehouse instead of renovating.
“I talked to several employees of the Taylor Mill Fire house, the fire department and other community members personally, and I reached out and asked the fire chief for a tour and I received a tour of the current facilities,” said Terry Foster, who has lived in Taylor Mill since its inception in 1957. “I could not believe, when I walked in the building, the smell of mold and the mustiness. The mold on the ceiling tiles, the wall, and the floor all along the areas–the windows was just surprising to me. I don’t know what asbestos looks like, but I could see around the windows and was told that’s what it was, and I have no reason to doubt it, but it was feet away from the kitchen where our firefighters are cooking and consuming food.”
He went on to say that the sleeping quarters were appalling, and the bathrooms were disgusting to him. There has to be a humidifier going constantly in the sleeping quarters to hold down the moisture and retard any more mold.
“The most appalling thing to me is that the fire exit in the sleeping quarters at the far end cannot be opened because the walls are bowed,” he stated. Then he repeated it. “So again, the fire exit in the firehouse cannot be opened. And I think we are putting our firefighters at risk any night they put their heads down. Many of the structures I saw there were in place when I ran (as a volunteer firefighter) from the fire department. I saw the same things. We can’t expect them to be here 24 hours a day in this unhealthy environment — I certainly wouldn’t want to be there and I was there a half hour. We can’t attract new talent in top notch firefighting and EMS professionals with these conditions. They risk their lives in fires I don’t think we need to do that in their sleeping quarters.”
Cindy Cahill is building 30 new homes in the city, and she renovated a church building, the old Kingdom Hall building, which cost her more than she thought it would.
“In purchasing the church and doing the renovation for my office, in hindsight I wish I would just have taken the building down and built from new,” she said.
“Unfortunately the things you run into when you’re in an older building like that which you don’t expect can be very costly and very restrictive of what you do. I had no idea of the amount; and I am very happy with the building, It has turned out to be beautiful, but I probably would have been better to invest a little more money and had everything totally new. So with that being said, if the firehouse, in fact, is as dated as it sounds, if it is, it might be a better investment for us as a community to go ahead and invest in a new building.”
Three other people spoke up for the firehouse, including one woman who said she trusted the officials that she helped elect to make the correct decisions for the city.
Sandy Beach said she has heard other people say they would rather renovate than build new, and she said her opinion would be to build new, like she did with her house.
“If I’m correct, if the new firehouse is $4 million or less, it’s a no brainer, build a new firehouse,” she said. “That’s going to support our firemen and fireladies and keep us in the budget. Build the new firehouse. Let’s just make Taylor Mill great again.”
Others were opposed to building a new firehouse and talked about how the city should find out how much it would cost to renovate instead of building new. Jeff GronecK said they know something has to be done, although he hinted that some conditions in the firehouse might have been let go to support a ‘haunted house’ feel.
Most of the arguments were not new.
The city has held two special meetings for the purpose of allowing the four companies who submitted plans in response to the city’s request to present their plans: Hub-Weber Architects with Mark Spaulding Construction out of Florence, Pepper Construction out of Cincinnati, Ohio, Hemmer Construction based in Ft Mitchell and Perkins-Carmack out of Milford, Ohio all responded with plans
to build a firehouse for $4 million or less.
“If you were at the meeting, every one of the representatives knew that commission satisfaction would be directly related on our expectation, and our expectation was $4 million bucks,” said Mayor Daniel Bell. “Everyone of them said yes. so they all know what the guideline is. There are a lot of moving parts in this, but it will all come together, and I think we’ll be able to build a very credible building for the price we want and save our fire department.”
Commissioners agreed to bring back two companies, Hub-Weber with Mark Spaulding and Perkins-Carmack, for a repeat presentation in two weeks at a special meeting on June 28 at 10 a.m.
Also in the meeting, the budget was passed which included the $2 million for the firehouse and $750,000 to buy a new fire pumper.
The vote was 3 to 1 with Commissioners Dan Murray, Caroline Braden and Mayor Bell voting yes and Commissioner Ed Kuehne voting no. Commissioner Mark Kreimborg was not present at the meeting.
Then a vote was held to buy a fire pumper which had been presented as an offer to the fire department. The pumper had been commissioned by another city, and then the city backed out. There is currently a wait of over 24 months to get a fire pumper like the one that was offered. This one had been ordered 21 months before, so if Taylor Mill agreed to buy it, the truck would be delivered to them in
August of this year. Instead of $721,000, the price would be $650,000, saving the city money.
The vote was the same as with the budget, 3 to 1, with Murray, Braden, and Bell voting yes and Kuehne voting no, so the pumper was okayed for purchase.