FAIRFIELD COUNTY - Just because there is stimulus money out there for many different grants, that doesn’t mean Fairfield County has to apply for all of them.

This was the discussion Fairfield County Council held at a special called meeting last week to consider the requirements for a stimulus-based fire station construction enhancement grant.

Councilmember Kamau Marcharia said at the time there was a ten-day window to put the application in for the grant. The Environment and Public Safety committee determined there were three possible site that might benefit from fire station construction--the Jenkinsville, Ridgeway and southeastern areas in the county. The county fire board also suggested those three areas as places for fire stations.

Council chairman David Brown asked if the county was applying for the grant, what was the status of that application?

“Yes. we want to apply for it-yes, we want three new stations. I don’t think there is anyone on this council who would say they didn’t want that-the question is, where would the three stations be going?”

New county grants coordinator Steven Gaither explained the requirements of the grant to council.

Because the funds for the construction of these stations would come from the economic stimulus (formally known as the American Recover and reinvestment Act, or ARRA) funds, the aim of funds

for the construction of the new stations would be to provide full-time employment for some firefighters, as the stations would have to have full-time paid staff.

“The highest consideration (for this grant) is going to be given to fire department serving communities that suffer from the highest degree of job loss,” Gaither explained.

Some of the other priorities are for projects that modify or extend existing structures to allow for full time paid staff at the fire departments. Consideration was also to be given to the the length of time the county has been attempting to build a fire station.

A willingness of the community to contribute to the project was also a desirable trait.

What brought council up short was the requirement for staffing the new fire stations with full-time pad staff, since the county has traditionally relied heavily on the good services of volunteers.

“We’ve been successfully operating the fire service for 20-some years with volunteers,” Brown pointed out.

“The first firefighter that we pay, volunteer service is over in this county,” put in councilmember Carolyn Robinson.

The potential costs of staffing three fire stations with paid staff was also a council concern.

Deputy county administrator Davis Anderson threw out the ballpark figure that to have about 12 people to man three stations would cost about $1 million dollars a year.

There was also concern as to what new standards these fire stations would set.

“If we get this funded, every fire station that we build from this point on will have to be just like this one,” Brown pointed out.

County administrator Phil Hinely said, “I think we’re all in a kind of stimulus frenzy in this country, where people think they can get all of this stimulus money...I don’t want us to be sidetracked; we do have some god opportunities to get some energy efficiency grant money.

“I think we need to kind of change expectations; just because we hear about a grant doesn’t mean that we’re going to get it,” Hinely said.

One positive thing that came out of the meeting was the identification of the need for a needs assessment to provide a roadmap for possible locations of fire stations in the future.