Upcoming changes to South Huron Fire Services provoked discussion during Monday (September 18th) night’s council meeting.
Draft minutes of the September 7th, 2023 Fire Services Advisory Committee meeting requested $100,000 from the Municipality for site preparation work at 177 Centre Street, Dashwood, as the preferred location for the replacement Dashwood Fire Station. Significant updates are required to the Dashwood Fire Hall as it is too small and no longer usable.
The Fire Services Advisory Committee requested a 2024 budget amount of $315,000 allocated to the Fire Capital Reserve for the replacement of the station.
Councilor Ted Oke stated that “condition assessment is one item. We also have a fire master plan report from last year or two years ago, that’s the basis for a lot of the discussions that we had at the committee”
He also said that the recommendations must be brought to a budget meeting to see if there can be a condition assessment.
CAO Rebecca Msuya-Collison brought her opinion to council saying that the last two recommendations by the committee referencing a new building in Dashwood, are ultimately council’s decision to make.
Councilor Aaron Neeb argued that the “Fire services advisory committee meeting, reviewed potential move of fire hall from Dashwood to Crediton – this would impact service, reduce response time beyond the 10-minute threshold.” He also reminded council that existing agreements with neighboring municipalities needed to be maintained, and would ultimately not facilitate this change.
At this time the 2024 budget has not been finalized.
Written By: K. Milhomens
