Forestburg Council looking to build new Fire Hall, County declines partnership
With more provincial grant funding now aimed at projects with two or more municipal partners, Forestburg Council recently made a decision to try to take advantage of funding under a new Alberta Communities Partnership Grant to build a new fire hall.
Because a great percentage of the calls the Forestburg Fire Department responds to are out-of-the-village calls, either assisting neighbours, or fighting fires in Flagstaff County, Forestburg Council approached Flagstaff County, Heisler, and Galahad as possible partners in the new project.
The village contacted Municipal Affairs about the possibility of using this grant for a new fire hall and were told that the project does meet the requirements.
“Under the guidelines of this grant, communities can partner with an unlimited number of communities as long as they are not the lead partner,” says Forestburg CAO Deb Moffat.
“We want to make it clear that we are not looking to our potential partners for any kind of financial assistance.
“We want to be a good regional partner; if the four of us work together, we can enhance the overall level of service we can provide.”
Moffat says that the present Fire Hall simply has no room for further expansion, the building is old, and barely meets the needs of a modern Fire Department.
“It was originally an office building, built sometime in the mid-50s, with the bays added later,” Moffat says. “When the county was looking for locations to house water trucks, we couldn’t even expand to accommodate them. The building has reached maximum size for its current location. There’s nowhere to go.”
She feels that not only would a new fire hall better serve the needs of the Fire Department, it may even have the effect of attracting new volunteers to step forward.
“Our firefighters are truly the backbone of our community. Our guys never say no when a request for assistance comes in.”
The village had hoped to receive a positive response from potential partners quickly, Moffat says, because the deadline for the first year of the three-year grant is coming up soon, near the end of November.
The reason the village wants to start the application process now is because under the first year of the grant, up to $350,000 is available on a non-matching basis.
In the second year of the grant, a further $350,000 could be obtained by matching $250,000, and in the third year, another $100,000 non-matching funds could be available. “That’s $1,050,000 with only $250,000 in matching funds,” she says.
“That’s an opportunity we would really like to be able to take advantage of, and this project seemed to be the perfect fit for the grant.”
During the Sept. 28 regular meeting, Flagstaff County Council declined Forestburg’s request to partner on the grant, advising, “We currently have no intent to partner with any individual municipality to build a new fire hall.”
Read more in the October 7 edition of The Community Press
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Leslie Cholowsky
Editor
