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t now appears that the fire siren will not be moving from a perch next to Oriental’s Town Hall.

That’s the upshot of a Tuesday morning meeting between Town Manager Bob Maxbauer — who had previously wanted to move the siren and tower — and several members of the local volunteer fire department which wanted it to stay where it had been for half a century. Also attending were two Town Commissioners.

At the standing room only meeting Monday night at which the Town Manager’s plans to move the fire siren came under fire. The Town Board, in foreground, heard from the Town Manager, seated at left and from the fire department, lined up along the right. Most in the audience sided with the fire department and opposed moving the town from Town Hall.

That agreement came to pass after an outcry from one neighborhood and a specially called meeting of Oriental’s Town Board on Monday night.

The special meeting was scheduled after residents near the Oriental Woman’s Club on Gilgo Road got wind last week that the Town Manager wanted to move the siren from Town Hall — where it had been for more than half a century — and that a town-owned lot next to OWC could become the siren’s next home.

The residents opposed having the Cold War era siren in their residential neighborhood. The Southeastern Pamlico Volunteer Fire Department also opposed moving the siren and says it made that clear months earlier to the Town Manager.

Town Manager Bob Maxbauer who said he wanted to move the fire siren from Town Hall because he didn’t think it would fit in with the ‘aesthetic” of the building once its renovations were done. He also claimed it would cost between $7,000-$12,000 to wire the Town Hall for the siren. The fire department challenged those figures.

Residents say they sent emails to the Town Manager and got no reply. Some commissioners did respond and arranged the meeting Monday night which more than 50 residents and members of the fire department attended. There, Fire Chief Alan Arnfast and other fire officials challenged the Town Manager’s stated reasons for moving the siren.

“Aesthetic” and Money Cited

Town Manager Bob Maxbauer spoke of the fire siren tower being at odds with the “aesthetic” and “positiveness” of the Town Hall, whose renovation he is overseeing as general contractor. Maxbauer said he saw the Town Hall becoming “a focal point for our town” and said he thought it would be better to find another place for the siren and its tower than behind the building.

Southeastern Pamlico Volunteer Fire Department chief Alan Arnfast and the deparetment’s president, Henry Frazer listen as Town Manager Bob Maxbauer lays out his reasons for seeking alternative places for the fire siren. Arnfast said the fire department wanted it to stay at Town Hall and expressed skepticism Monday night at the price quotes the Town Manager cited for re-connecting the siren there.

Maxbauer also acted as architect for the retrofit project and did away with the 3-phase electrical power that had been linked to Town Hall in the past in order to run the siren. (The renovated Town Hall will include the old generator from the water plant — so that Town Hall can have power when there’s an outage. While it had been a 3-phase generator, Maxbauer said it functioned only as a 1-phase.)

Bob Maxbauer, Town Manager and general contractor for the Town Hall renovation, holds up papers to buttress his claim that it would cost the Town upwards of $7,000 to re-install the fire siren at Town Hall. At left, in blue, is Laura Penninger, the recently hired project assistant (temporary) for the Town Hall project.

Maxbauer came to the Monday meeting with an estimate of what it would cost at this time to rewire the Town Hall to accommodate the 3-phase power for the siren. He held up an estimate he said came from Progress Energy, dated October 19, that claimed PE would charge the town $7,000 to bring 400 amps of 3-phase power to the building.

Beyond that, Maxbauer claimed, it would cost several thousand dollars for some other parts of the installation. (Commissioners in recent days were quoting Maxbauer as saying it would cost more than $12,000 to keep the siren at Town Hall.)

Members of the Southeastern Pamlico Volunteer Fire Department – Jan Dique, Mike Guzzo, Chief Alan Arnfast, President Henry Frazer, Bob Dales and Danny Foreman. Other members of the fire department were part of the audience in the meeting held at the First Baptist Church, which has served as a meeting place since Hurricane Irene flooded Town Hall.

Fire Department Skepticism Over Manager’s Price Quotes

Those numbers drew some deep skepticism from the Fire Department and Fire Chief Alan Arnfast. At Arnfast’s side Monday night was volunteer firefighter Mike Guzzo, an electrician by trade, who backed up Arnfast’s suggestion that the 3-phase power could be obtained for less than the estimate put forward by the Town Manager.

For example, they noted, the siren needed only 14 amps of power, not 400, a distinction that could knock back the estimate significantly. The firefighters suggested other ways of wiring the system so that the power was there for the approximately 24 times a year the siren is sounded.

“Blindsided” by “Executive Decision”

Arnfast said that Maxbauer initially came to the Fire Department in August with his proposal to move the siren. The department at that time, says Arnfast, unanimously voted against that. One reason: they anticipated resistance from neighbors if the Town tried to move it anywhere from where it had been for more than 50 years.

Arnfast says the Fire Department thought that having made their views known in August, the siren would remain at Town Hall. At a meeting last week, however, volunteer fireman Danny Foreman says that Maxbauer told him that as Town Manager he could make the “‘executive decision’” to move the siren to a tower elsewhere.

Volunteer firefighter Danny Foreman at the Monday night Town Board meeting held at the First Baptist Church. Foreman said that the Town Manager had told him a week earlier that as Town Manager he could make the “executive decision” to move the tower.

When Foreman related that conversation to the Town Board at the Monday meeting, Maxbauer denied that he’d said that. Contacted after the meeting, Danny Foreman stood by his account, adding that the Town Manager told him he could move the tower regardless of any outcry that might come up among residents or in the media.

Alan Arnfast told the Town Board that he felt “blindsided” by the news that the Town Manager wasn’t keeping the siren at Town Hall — as he thought they’d agreed.

Some of the crowd at Monday night’s Town Board meeting. Many reside near the town’s lot on Gilgo Road which the Town Manager planned as an alternative site for the siren rather than keeping it at Town Hall.

(Ahead, the public comments..)

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Residents Voice Concerns About Town Manager’s Handling Of Issue

In a public comment section of Monday’s meeting, some residents took issue with the Town Manager as well. Neill Haggard noted that Maxbauer did not answer residents’ emails about the siren. (This echoes a complaint cited by residents who’ve tried to contact Maxbauer on other issues.)

At left, some of the residents who opposed putting the fire siren in the neighborhood near the Oriental Woman’s Club. At right, several of the members of the volunteer fire department which also opposed moving the siren from Town Hall.

Art Tierney questioned why the $289,000 Town Hall renovation didn’t include the things necessary for keeping the siren where it had been for half a century.

Referring to the renovation where the Town Manager is both designer and general contractor, Tierneyu said, “My understanding was that it was to replace the existing facility and equipment and make improvements. The architect and general contractor were remiss in replacing what had to be replaced.” Had the wiring for the siren been included, Tierney suggested, “we wouldn’t be sitting here” at the meeting.

Town Manager Bob Maxbauer listens as a resident speaks at Monday night’s meeting. To his left, Laura Penninger, the project assistant the town hired for the Town Hall renovation project on which Mr. Maxbauer is the general contractor.

Maxbauer did not directly address Tierney’s complaint but quickly gave a response in which he referred to himself in the third-person, “Hearing a comment like that is disappointing to the Manager trying to raise and elevate this community.”

Resident Toni Leavitt meanwhile, took issue with Maxbauer’s claim that the siren on a pole would mar the “aesthetic” of the Town Hall renovation he designed. “You’re worried about the siren mucking up the view?” Leavitt asked, before suggesting that the new rooflines of the building did that.

Resident Toni Leavitt responded to the Town Manager’s claim that returning the fire siren tower to Town Hall would not fit with the “aestehtic” he had in mind for the Town Hall renovation. Leavitt questioned the aesthetic of the new Town Hall’s rooflines.

One resident did speak in favor of moving the siren away from Town Hall. Hugh Grady, who runs the Inn at Oriental on Church Street about 100 feet from the siren, said it was bad for business.

Others at the meeting, including residents including Missy Tenhet and firefighter Danny Foreman noted that those living near the siren would have known about it when they bought their homes. In contrast, said Tenhet, “When we bought in to our neighborhood,” near the OWC, “there was no alarm there.”

Oriental’s Town Board, commissioners Sherrill Styron, Warren Johnson, Mayor Bill Sage, Commissioners Larry Summers and Barbara Venturi.

Firefighter Pete Ritchie noted for the record that the Station 19 fire department might get 24 calls a year. That worked out to the siren going off on average, twice a month.

As the meeting wound down, the Town Board suggested that it wanted to keep the siren at Town Hall and not move it. It asked that the fire department and Town Manager get together to find a solution for wiring the Town Hall that would be far less than the $7,00-$12,000 figure that the Town Manager presented.

The Town Board, at Monday’s meeting, with commissioners Barb Venturi and Larry Summers in the foreground. The two commissioners subsequently met on Tuesday morning with representatives of the fire department and the Town Manager.

Next Morning: Less Expensive Solution Found

The next morning, four of the firefighters met with the Town Manager and two commissioners. The solution they came up with, says Fire Chief Alan Arnfast, would cost approximately $1,500 – not $12,000 earlier cited by Maxbauer. He says that the electrical system will be made to accommodate a three phase generator that could power the siren on those approximately 24 times a year that it goes off.

And the Fire Department is making good on its offer made several months ago to the Town Manager. Arnfast says that the cost of the 3-phase wiring to the siren — the $1,500 for the install and equipment and the $1,000 for the approximately 58 foot long treated wood pole — will come out of the Southeastern Pamlico Volunteer Fire District’s coffers. It will not be paid by Oriental taxpayers.

Siren Improvements

One thing in all of this that has been silent is the siren itself. It was taken down as the renovations ramped up at Town Hall this summer. Firefighters took that opportunity to spiff it up and now, with new coats of bright yellow paint, it’s ready for a reinstallation. (They’ve even nicknamed it Aggie, for one of the sirens in Greek mythology.) A

Arnfast said he did not know know when the siren would be put back up.

The 700 pound fire siren, after its makeover thanks to Bob Dales, Terry Walsh and other members of the Southeastern Pamlico Volunteer Fire Department.

It was noted at Monday’s meeting that the pole for the siren is about 15 feet higher than the one it had been affixed to before and could be about 50 feet in the air when all is said and done. That may be good news for those who live near the siren. One fireman said that putting the siren higher would likely make it somewhat quieter on the ground nearby because the noise would be going straight out and not bounce off of building walls.

Why A Siren At All?

One question that has come up in recent days was why the Fire Department needed a siren at all in this day of pagers and radios. Fire Chief Arnfast said that for the district to get the fire insurance rating it gets (one of the most favorable available) it has to show it has a backup way of alerting the volunteer fire department that there was a fire to fight. That’s where the siren comes in.

What makes it tick. The box that controls the various sirens that go out. As seen at left, this dates from the Cold War and the Civil Defense system set up in anticipation of a nuclear attack.

Arnfast notes that the siren is part of the Civil Defense system set up in the 1950’s. While most Oriental residents are familiar with the sound of its fire alarms — it has two other siren settings as well. One is a warning that a tornado may be coming, the other warns of a nuclear attack.

Posted Thursday November 1, 2012 by Melinda Penkava