home

1  2   next page ›

S

outheast Pamlico Volunteer Fire Department chief Alan Arnfast says he thought he had a deal with the Town that the fire siren should remain behind Town Hall. But two days after Arnfast got the Town Manager to agree to that, Mayor Bill Sage threw a change-up.

Late on Thursday, Mayor Sage and Town Manager Bob Maxbauer were suggesting that the Town hoist the siren up on a crane and test it at the Fire Station on Straight Road and possibly at other places in town where the siren could be located.

With that, the Mayor reopened the fire siren debate, thought to have been settled two days earlier. That sets the stage for what could be a showdown at the Tuesday, November 6 Town Board meeting.

“If they want to pick another fight,” said Fire Chief Arnfast said after hearing of the Mayor and Town Manager’s suggestion, “they are heading down that road.”

Southeastern Pamlico Volunteer Fire District FIre Chief Alan Arnfast and the fire siren. It was taken down from behind Town Hall a few months ago while renovations were underway. The department did a makeover of the siren – spiffing it up with yellow paint — and wants to return it to a new 50 foot pole behind Town Hall. Arnfast says he’s ready to fight — for a third time — to get town officials to keep their promise to put it back at Town Hall.

Fire Chief: “It Was Settled” – Siren Promised For Town Hall

Arnfast says the Fire Department wants the siren at Oriental’s Town Hall, because it is where they’ve had it for almost 60 years and where it is centrally located to alert the most people. It’s a fairness question too, he says, of keeping it in a neighborhood where people knew it existed when they bought their homes and moved in – as opposed to foisting the loud siren on a new neighborhood.

Along with many others in Oriental who’ve been following the fire siren issue in the past two weeks, the Fire Chief says he thought that it was agreed to keep the siren at Town Hall, after a packed Town meeting Monday October 29 and after a subsequent meeting Tuesday morning October 30 involving the Fire Department, Town Manager Bob Maxbauer and two Town Commissioners.

The conclusion of that October 30 meeting was that the siren would stay at Town Hall and that the cost of wiring it would not be the $7,000-12,000 the Town Manager had claimed a night earlier. Instead, it was determined that for about $1,500, the 1-phase power at Town Hall could be converted to the necessary 3-phase by way of a 3-phase generator. The monetary obstacle was cleared.

“It was settled,” Arnfast said of his meeting Tuesday with Maxbauer. “In no uncertain terms, the pole was going to go at Town Hall.” Arnfast says he and the Town Manager “stood by the construction trailer behind Town Hall,” and even picked the place to plant the siren’s new pole.

Mayor Wants Siren Tested At Fire Station For Possible Placement There

Thursday evening, however, at the Town Board’s sparsely attended agenda meeting – only 2 members of the public were present – Mayor Bill Sage threw that agreement in to question. Instead of emphasizing the location of the siren as laid out in the Tuesday morning deal, the Mayor chose to emphasize that a way had been found to convert 1-phase power to 3-phase power anywhere in Town, not just at Town Hall.

Sage told three commissioners attending the Thursday meeting that he wanted the Town to run tests to see if the siren could be mounted at the fire station house on Straight Road, a mile and a half away. The Town Manager concurred.

Mayor Bill Sage at the Thursday November 1 meeting of the Town Board. At right, Commissioners Larry Summers and Barbara Venturi listen as the Mayor lays out his case for testing the fire siren at locations other than Town Hall. Both commissioners say they thought the issue was settled to keep it there.

As the Mayor and Town Manager spoke, looks of puzzlement and surprise crossed the faces of the three Town Commissioners present. Two of them, Barb Venturi and Larry Summers had taken part in the Tuesday meeting where Maxbauer agreed to keep the fire siren at Town Hall. Venturi put out a press release to that effect. (TownDock reported that agreement in a story that appeared Thursday morning.)

Commissioner Warren Johnson said he thought that the Town had a deal with the fire department – forged on Tuesday – that determined that the siren would stay at Town Hall. Sage swatted Johnson’s comment aside; “Nothing is determined,” said the Mayor, “until this Board determines it.”

Commissioner Venturi also questioned the grounds for reopening the debate. She said her notes of Monday’s meeting — where most of the 50 residents in attendance opposed moving the siren from Town Hall — were that the Board wanted to keep the siren at Town Hall if it weren’t expensive to do so. The Mayor curtly responded to Venturi, “Your notes are wrong.”

Town Commissioner Larry Summers at right reacts as Mayor Bill Sage says he wants to test the siren at places in town other than Town Hall. After the meeting, Summers said, “That was a new one on me” and reiterated that he wanted the board to vote to keep the siren at Town Hall. That will likely come up at the November 6 meeting of the Board.

Sage said that his recollection of Monday’s meeting was that, “by no means did we rule out putting it at the Fire Station.”

“We need to look at the Fire Station,” as a site for the siren, Sage said, as he said he pushed for a sound test. “We need to see who can hear it,” from there. He suggested other sites could be tested as well. The water tower was among the places mentioned.

Town Manager: Fire Department Should Be Happy To Test Siren Elsewhere

To that, the Town Manager concurred. The Town Manager had said on Monday that he didn’t want the siren on a pole at the Town Hall because it would hurt the “aesthetic” of the building whose renovation he designed. Two days after reaching the deal with the Fire Department to keep it there, Maxbauer on Thursday night said that he thought “the Fire Department would entertain this very idea” of testing the siren somewhere other than Town Hall.

Town Manager Bob Maxbauer at the Thursday, November 1 agenda meeting of the Town Board where he said he thought the Fire Department would want to test the siren at places other than Town Hall. Two days earlier, at a meeting with the Fire Department, it had been agreed to keep it at Town Hall.

“I think they’d be very happy to test it,” Maxbauer said, “before it is erected anywhere.”

Fire Chief Cites “Gall” And Says Stick To The Deal

They are not. Contacted after the Thursday night Town Board agenda meeting, Fire Chief Alan Arnfast said that the Town Manager had “gall” to suggest the Fire Department wanted anything but to stick to the agreement reached Tuesday, to put the siren at Town Hall.

Arnfast said it appeared to him that the Mayor and Town Manager were “taking any slack” they could to change the deal.

Arnfast said that if he’d known the siren would be discussed at the Thursday meeting, he’d have attended “for the sake of nipping that in the bud.”

“Nothing we’ve said in the past few months,” said Arnfast, would support the idea of moving the siren to a new location. “We don’t need to run any tests at the Fire Station,” Arnfast said.

TownDock.net asked Arnfast to spell out why the Fire Department says the siren should stay at Town Hall, where it’s been for almost 60 years.

1  2   next page ›

Posted Monday November 5, 2012 by Melinda Penkava