Edgartown voters approve $2.5 million for new fire station

Edgartown’s delayed construction of a new fire station will get back on track after it received a $2.5 million influx of funding. 

At the Edgartown special town meeting on Tuesday, Edgartown voters unanimously approved all 14 articles on the warrant, including the additional funding for the town’s new fire station. . 

More than 100 residents filled the Old Whaling Church, over double the lowered quorum of 40 at the town’s first special town meeting since 2017. The gathering opened with a moment of silence for former Edgartown Police Chief David Rossi, and Glen Searle, former wastewater commissioner for Edgartown who recently ran for a seat on the select board. 

All of the warrant articles passed with little discussion. The warrant, consisting of spending requests, all allocated from free cash and carried no tax increases for residents. The requests ranged from school playground improvements and permission to explore solar developments at the town’s landfill, to opioid settlement allocations, and police station security upgrades. 

The heart of the 14-article warrant was article 13, which requested an additional $2.5 million to cover the construction of the new fire station. The project was originally approved in 2023 and was expected to cost $21.5 million, but recent bids came in well above the initial estimates. Rising costs also put a halt to demolition to the station which was supposed to be carried out last month. 

Edgartown Fire Chief Alexander Schaeffer said to receive Edgartown’s unanimous approval was “a great feeling,” but he was surprised when nobody raised any questions prior to the vote. 

“All of the people in the community really support what we do, understand what we’re trying to accomplish,” said Schaeffer after the special town meeting. “I wasn’t anticipating a real pushback, but just some questions with some answers that we were prepared to give.”

Schaeffer said now that funding is secured they plan to continue moving out of the current building on Wednesday and into a temporary building while construction continues. 

“We’re going to be continuing to move things a little more with a little more sense of urgency now as we haven’t known where we were going to land,” Shaeffer said. “But now that we have the affirmative vote to move forward, we will be moving into the temporary structure and moving to get out of the old structure.”

Schaeffer said they plan to be fully moved into the temporary building by Dec. 17 and residents should expect to see construction fencing going up soon. But with the holidays closing in, visible progress is expected to ramp up in early January. 

The current fire station, constructed in 1966, was flagged by a feasibility study in 2016 for 12 deficiencies, including outdated and undersized infrastructure. It also lacked space for modern equipment, such as contaminant extractors used to clean carcinogens off gear after dealing with a fire, and new ambulances and fire trucks. 

“The size of the apparatuses, the scope of our mission, all of that has changed so much since then [1966]. We have people in the station 24 hours a day living there, essentially for their shifts, and the station was never set up for that,” said Schaeffer. “We’re in dire need of it, storage space, all the things that we’re responsible for to provide for this community requires some sort of apparatus or some sort of equipment, and it’s been very difficult to try and keep it all underneath that roof.” 

Schaeffer said on behalf of the Edgartown fire department, he offers a heartfelt thanks for the unanimous support from voters. 

“I can’t express how much gratitude I have towards our community for showing their support to us,” said Schaeffer.