Fire_Hall_approved

Jeff Green | Sep 06, 2007

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by Jeff Green

Central Frontenac Council has approved the construction of a fire hall in Mountain Grove.

In a unanimous vote at a special council meeting in Mountain Grove, council granted the tender for the building to Wemp and Smith of Kingston, for a cost not to exceed $509,000. With other fees, the project will come in at $532,000, $67,000 more than had originally been budgeted.

At this point, council is looking to leave the shortfall to be made up in the 2008 budget, but if there are surpluses, they may be applied to it.

The new fire hall will be substantially different than the one recently constructed near Sharbot Lake. It will be a wood frame building (the Sharbot Lake hall is entirely of steel construction) and contains added features such as higher levels of insulation and radiant floor heating.

Key members of the Olden Fire Department attended the meeting, sitting quietly at the back of the hall.

“That only took five years of work to get approved,” said a happy Deputy Chief Cowdy after the vote was taken.

At the special meeting, council also approved road construction for a portion of the Oak Flats Road in the south end of the township, at a cost of $302,000, $52,000 over the revised budgeted cost of $250,000.

While the fire hall was approved in a unanimous vote, there was one dissenting vote for the Oak Flats Road project. Councilor Frances Smith questioned why council was spending “three quarters of our road construction budget on one single road. We’d be better off doing more in the way of maintenance on all of the roads in the township.”

Councilor Bob Harvey voted in favour of the Oak Flats Road construction, but said, “I hope I never have to hear about Oak Flats Road ever again.”

Both projects are expected to commence within two weeks.