BY RYAN O’CONNOR

The town continues to look for ways to address space needs at the fire and police departments.

On Jan. 22, Bow selectmen hosted a public informational meeting at the Bow Fire Department to discuss potential renovations to town police and fire facilities, and gauge residents’ interest for a new combined public safety building.

Eric Palson, an architectural consultant hired to evaluate the current police and fire stations, and Steve Atherton of Cobb Hill Construction presented their findings.

Throughout the meeting, many residents said the town should save money, while others didn’t want to see another patchwork job on the safety buildings.

Still, many residents said it was too early to make judgments and wanted to see architectural plans and costs before making a decision.

After residents approved a $12,500 warrant article last year for a facility-needs assessment, Selectman Eric Anderson said the board will go back to Town Meeting to seek additional money for an architectural plan for a potential facility.

Resident Ray Johnson and several others, including firefighter Ted Bardwell, said they want to see police and fire workers provided safe, comfortable work environments.

“We’ve been waiting for this for far too long,” said Johnson. Everything has been patch, patch, patch, and these people protect our lives, and I’ve just got a problem spending all kinds of money on other things. And every time it comes to something of this nature, people nitpick it. In the long run, I think it would be cheaper to build from the ground up anyway.”

According to figures presented by Atherton, a new combined facility could cost $2.8 to $3.1 million.

Remedial work on the two current buildings would cost $2.1 to $2.5 million, and that estimate doesn’t include future upgrades, only current necessities.

In addition, Atherton said it would cost roughly $880,000 to $980,000 to renovate the old buildings into functioning facilities for other town uses.

Palson was critical of the town for combining the police and public works departments into one building, and the fire and recreation departments into another. He said combining unrelated town functions is atypical and it would make more sense to combine police and fire departments.

Pitts said in addition to saving money, combining police and fire services also allows the two departments to share facilities for training, electronics and other similar functions.

Though no blueprints have been drawn, and nothing is close to final, Palson used a piece town-owned land on Knox Road located across from the fire station to demonstrate where a safety facility could be built with no additional land purchase.

Police

Palson began his presentation with the police station, saying its current location is not centrally located.

He showed a diagram, which indicated an accident could happen on Interstate 93, not 50 yards from the station, and a responder would have to drive 8 miles to get from one location to the other because of the lack of highway access.

Moreover, Palson explained the station was retrofitted poorly and fails fire and ADA codes.

“It has been well treated cosmetically, which could be deceiving structurally,” said Palson.

The roof is not secure on the building, the front of the station is uninsulated, and there is no firewall between the public works department side of the building and police side. In addition, the building lacks an exhaust system, which emits fumes into the police station.

Security issues include a lack of a sally port, no secure lockup area and the inability to separate detainees.

Pitts said it’s the security issues that concern him the most.

“The Bow police facility is better than the fire department, but it is inadequate in a number of ways, most involving officer safety,” said Pitts.

Fire

Though the current fire station has a good central location to residential areas in town, Palson agreed with Pitts, saying the structure, which was built in 1956, is in far worse shape than the police department.

Problems include a makeshift bunk room with no windows or ventilation; two roof peaks of the building that flow into one centralized area, which eventually builds up with ice, leaves and other debris; water buildup in the basement; and no fire alarm or sprinkler system in the station.

The building also has vinyl asbestos flooring and the perimeter walls are uninsulated.

In addition, the garage barely fits the town’s fire trucks and slows firefighters from moving around and potentially arriving on scene. The space also forces the department to purchase smaller vehicles.

The fire department failed inspection and has until August to either plan renovations or show progress toward a new facility to receive a temporary permit extension from the state Fire Marshal’s office.