GREENWOOD — Residents have voted to buy 17 acres on Route 219 for a future fire station to replace the nearby Greenwood City station that has black mold, no bathroom or running water and room for only one truck.
Greenwood voters have approved buying 17 acres on Route 219, which is West Paris Road, for a future fire station. It would replace the nearby Greenwood City Fire Station that has black mold, no bathroom or running water and room for only one truck. Rose Lincoln/The Bethel Citizen
The station at 22 West Paris Road, which is also Route 219, was once a horse barn.
The 13-0 vote Dec. 20 included appropriating up to $69,000 from the Fire Department’s billing reserve account, which has $225,000.
Fire Chief Ken Cole told voters, “We are not raising taxes and we are not raising new monies.”
The 17 acres is half of a piece up for sale and has been cleared and partly leveled. Abutters are interested in buying some of the back acreage as a buffer for their properties, he said.
The piece the town wants to buy is large enough for a fire pond and a helicopter landing pad, Cole said. In the future, the department would like to add a training station and a rescue center.
Town officials hope to get help from the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments for grants to finance some of the construction.
Officials are looking at selling the Greenwood City station and 10 acres behind it because the front parcel is not large enough to build on.
The town’s other fire station is on Howe Hill Road in Locke Mills village.
At their meeting before the vote, Selectmen Amy Chapman, Arnold Jordan and Norman Milliard discussed selling tax-acquired properties. Four homeowners are on repayment plans and two have stopped paying altogether.
The Jackson-Silver American Legion Post has offered its hall on Gore Road for an energy fair Saturday, April 22. Booths will be set up and questions about Maine energy rebates will be answered. The fair satisfies a stipulation in the Governor’s Office Policy of Innovation and Future grant awarded to the town.
Selectmen decided to move forward on cutting timber at the 10-acre town brush dump. T.R. Dillon has a timber harvest operation underway on abutting land.
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