The town of Newton is looking to build a new fire station.
Newton Supervisor Kelly Christiansen explains to Seehafer News that the fire station they have now was built about sixty years ago and the size of equipment has gotten bigger.
That means the station isn’t big enough to story everything the town has.
“What it was designed for and the amount of equipment that we have as far as trucks and other things, we don’t have room for everything even on sight,” Christiansen explained. “Some of it is kept off sight. Not critical equipment but there’s equipment that they do use for things that happen.”
The town has a preliminary budget between and $5.5 and $7 million along with drawings of what the new fire station could look like.
But Christiansen and other township supervisors want to make sure that residents approve of it first.
“Everybody in the town has a voice,” he said. “We want everybody to be aware of every last thing.”
If everything goes through, Christiansen says taxes could go up, but it’s an investment that will benefit the town years later.
“The idea is that for a good 20 to 30 years down the road that nothing would have to change,” he described. “(The new fire station) would be large that if they would add another fire truck. There’s room in the building. It’s not built just to fit what we have now because that would be short sighted.”
The next meeting on the new fire station is on Tuesday, November 19th around 6:00 p.m.
The community had their first presentation last month.
