Source: Union-News (Springfield, MA)
Author: MIKE PLAISANCE
PELHAM, MA – Town Meeting members will be asked this spring to approve as much as $120,000 in extra funding for the new police station, in addition to the $5.8 million already appropriated, a step that the Finance Committee chairwoman yesterday said was unexpected.
“It certainly came as a surprise,” Myrna Hewitt said, adding the funding request may cause a stir at Town Meeting. “I imagine it’s going to cause a reaction from some people, would be my guess.”
Fire Chief Victor J. Zumbruski said about $15,000 is needed for a new radio antenna tower the town would install on Mount Lincoln in Pelham to improve its dispatch services.
“This gives us better coverage for our needs for Pelham and Shutesbury,” he said.
Finance Director Nancy Maglione said in addition to the installation costs for the new antenna, the extra funding would be used to move and install computer and phone equipment into the new police headquarters, now under construction at Main and Churchill streets.
“That’s the bottom line . . . The town will have to go to Town Meeting for more money,” she said.
Police now work out of a basement office in Town Hall a few buildings up the street. Officials expect the new station to be ready by June or July.
Maglione and Christopher Riddle, of Kuhn Riddle Architects Inc., which designed the new police station, said the funding for the antenna and computer and phone equipment work was not included in the original appropriation of $5,063,000 that Town Meeting approved last spring.
The remaining $800,000 for the new station covers the cost of the land, Riddle said.
Maglione said that officials thought these costs were included in the original list of project specifications, but they were not.
Town Manager Barry L. Del Castilho said he is searching for other funds to reduce the amount that will be needed from Town Meeting. He said he expects the total amount needed will be less than $120,000.
Hewitt said the Finance Committee took no action on the expected request for extra funds at its meeting last week. She said committee members are awaiting exact numbers from Del Castilho.
“I don’t know what it’s for. I don’t know how much it is,” she said.
Zumbruski said that the antenna he hopes Amherst will get is a Hampshire County-owned antenna that now stands on the grounds of the Goshen Fire Department. Amherst would get the 140-foot steel antenna, which has four legs and stands on concrete blocks, around May or June after a new larger antenna is installed on the Goshen site, he said.
He noted the approval of town boards in Amherst and Pelham is needed before the antenna can be relocated and installed.
The Fire Department now uses an antenna attached to the roof of the North Pleasant Street station, while the Police Department rents an antenna on Mount Lincoln, he said.
The county is donating the antenna to Amherst but the town must pay the $15,000 cost to install it, he said.
The Southern New England Telephone Co. will install a 180-foot antenna in Goshen to allow for use of cellular phones in that area, Goshen Fire Chief Francis S. Dresser said.