City will look at cost effectiveness of renovating house for fire department offices

Before beginning to renovate the white house located just north of the central fire station into a new administrative headquarters for the Fire Department, the city will first investigate whether it might be more prudent to tear the building down and start from scratch, City Manager Eileen Cabanel said Monday night. The city purchased the 3,000-square-foot house at the corner of North Main Street and Tremont Street this summer for $262,500 and planned to use it as part of a overall $1.5-million plan to renovate and expand the station.

Tentative plans had called for the distance between the current station footprint and the house to be filled with a connecting two-story building that would include several new truck bays. But before the city proceeds with that general plan, Cabanel said, it will now retain an engineer to cost out the difference between renovating the house into appropriate office space and building new.

The house has most recently been used as an apartment building and Cabanel said the tenants had been given until Sept. 30 to find other accommodations.

The subject came up at Monday night's City Council meeting because councilors agreed with an administrative request to transfer about $39,000 out of the 2007-2008 Fire Department budget for personnel expense to the account set up for "Design/Engineering Central Fire Station". A portion of that money will be used to pay for the engineering study of the house at 858 North Main Street.

The funds, Cabanel explained were no longer needed for salaries and benefits because of the new five-year contract for ambulance service that had been negotiated between the city and LRGHealthcare. Effective Sept. 1, the hospital began paying for the cost of the four highest paid (non-officer) paramedics in the Fire Department, instead of the four newest people.

Councilors quickly and unanimously approved the new ambulance contract, which calls for the continuation of a 10-year-old arrangement whereby the hospital essentially pays for the equipment and a portion of the personnel expense of operating the emergency medical service in return for keeping the income that is generated by it. All Fire Department personnel are employees of the city, but the city bills the hospital for agreed-to costs and gets reimbursed.

Cabanel highlighted other significant changes to the agreement, including:

— The establishment of the new position of deputy fire chief for emergency services, which will be paid for LRGHealthcare. The position, Cabanel stressed, is not an "entitlement" for the Fire Department, but will exist so long as the hospital is picking up the tab.

— The hospital has committed to fund a program to encourage emergency service workers at the EMT level to upgrade to paramedic classification by offering training and additional stipends of $4,000 per year. Right now, Cabanel said, the city's EMTs are not terribly motivated to get additional certification because training is expensive and the difference in pay is only about 5-percent. Chief Ken Erickson, she noted, also has difficulty recruiting new paramedics. Cabanel emphasized that the extra stipends the hospital will be paying are strictly between LRGHealthcare and the paramedics and will not involve the city in any way.

NOTES: Gilford resident Dick Metz received permission from City Council to use a portion of City Hall parking lots on Saturday, Oct. 27 for "The Lakes Region Salutes Families of Our Citizen Soldiers". The event will be sponsored by the Belknap Mill Society, where Metz is a trustee. Money raised at the event — which will include a Blackhawk helicopter fly-over and music by Annie and The Orphans, Metz said, would be donated to the NH Chaplin's Fund. Cabanel noted the purpose of the event is strictly to provide support for the families of soldiers serving overseas and was not going to be a political forum "to complain about anything". . . . . . Councilors quickly agreed to formally accept a federal aviation grant for $2.1-million to cover most of the cost of the design and construction of an itinerant parking apron, as well as an upgrade to hazard beacons, at the Laconia Municipal Airport. Five-percent of the total project cost will be split between the state Department of Transportation (Division of Aeronautics) and the airport itself. . . . . Mayor Matt Lahey decided to let council's subcommittee on Public Works grapple with a proposal to keep fishermen (or anyone else) from parking on the westerly side of the approach to the the Governor's Island bridge, above Wentworth Cove Road. Public Works Director Paul Moynihan is recommending the "no parking" area be declared in order to improve drainage in the low-lying area but neighbor Richard Holmes suggested it won't do much good because people are willing to accept "a $10 ticket" as a price to park there. Holmes pointed out there are "no parking" signs along Summit Ave. now and he has witnessed police writing tickets for violations. "It's a contradictory story," he added, "because the city is claiming they (the signs) are not theirs." . . . . . Cabanel informed council that the cost of repairing the membrane that covers the old city landfill out by the airport was gong to be $187,000, not the $245,000 that was budgeted. She also reiterated that she is working with Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter's office to get federal disaster relief help with the bill because the damage was done during the rain storms this past April.