Fire station’s exact scope still on table

The Waynesboro City Council will proceed later this month with borrowing $2.6 million for the West End fire station as part of larger bond package, but questions remained Tuesday about the ultimate staffing and exact scope of the station.

Waynesboro City Manager Mike Hamp said the council will have to hold a work session with an architecture and engineering firm to iron out the exact use of all of the 8,000-square-foot station, beyond the housing of a needed third engine company. That engine company could be used to improve response times to fires in Waynesboro’s West End.

Hamp said council will also have to decide about staffing. Fire Chief Charles Scott said 12 more staff members would be needed to run a third engine company at the new station.

Vice Mayor Frank Lucente said while he supports the building of the station, he would have difficulty supporting the addition of $1 million in annual operating costs brought by adding the staff. “The operation will cost the city for years and years,’’ said Lucente.

Mayor Tim Williams and Councilwoman Lorie Smith said since the fire station was approved as part of a city referendum on projects a year ago, it has been mandated. City Councilwoman Nancy Dowdy said the safety of the residents is the city’s top concern.

Lucente said he was still bothered by the “$1 million to $1.5 million a year” in operating costs.

Smith said a work session with architects and engineers to look at the scope of the station is in order. The project’s original request for proposal includes a physical fitness area, training room, administrative offices and a satellite office for city police.

“We have a mandate to make it [the station] functional and cover the West End of the city,’’ Smith said. Williams said it was OK to proceed with the borrowing but said staffing will have to be creatively looked at.

While land has yet to be found, Hamp estimates that ground on the new station will be broken sometime in 2009.

Also Tuesday night, the council passed a resolution authorizing the city administration to reinvest $5 million of the city’s operating cash and reserve fund into bank certificates of deposits with ranges of 12 months to 24 months and interest rates of between 3.75 percent and 4.8 percent.

Hamp told the council that the reinvestment is necessary because of the lower interest rate the city is earning in Virginia’s Local Government Investment Program. That investment program is only returning a 2.6 percent rate. Hamp said the reinvested money could earn the city another $250,000 in revenues.