Boyceville offers lot for new fire station for $16,000
By LeAnn R. Ralph
BOYCEVILLE — Members of the Boyceville Community Fire District board have learned the Village of Boyceville is asking $16,000 for the four-acre lot near the airport where a new fire station could be built.
Gilbert Krueger, Boyceville village president and chair of the fire board, reported at the February 15 meeting that the Boyceville Village Board had agreed upon a price of $16,000 after discussing the issue “at length.”
The Boyceville Village Board met in closed session following the regular village board meeting February 12 to discuss offering to sell the lot to the fire district.
Village board members decided the fire district should be able to buy the lot for an amount similar to what the village sold the lot for the new ambulance service building, Krueger said.
The village will be paying about $4,000 of the $16,000 as the village’s share, he said.
“I think that sounds like a reasonable amount,” said Rich Monn, representative for the Town of Stanton and chair of the fire board’s five-year-planning committee.
“We thought so,” Krueger said.
When Colfax built a new fire station in 2012, the fire department paid $75,000 for a five-acre lot within the village limits that was part of a farm owned by Jim and Mary Schindler.
All of the municipalities in the Boyceville fire district would pay for the new fire station based on the percentage of the equalized value in the fire district.
According to information presented at the October of 2017 meeting, the total equalized value in the Boyceville fire district is $269.68 million. Boyceville’s equalized value for this year is $45.42 million.
Other municipalities in the fire district include the Town of Hay River with an equalized value of $59.69 million; the Town of New Haven with $35.96 million in equalized value (87 percent of the township is in the first district); the Town of Sherman with $34.95 million in equalized value (51 percent of the township is in the fire district); Town of Stanton with $56.24 million in equalized value; the Town of Tiffany with $29.18 million in equalized value; and the village of Wheeler with $9.24 million in equalized value.
The fire board settled on 11,390 square feet for a new fire station at the October of 2017 meeting.
The apparatus bay would be 7,340 square feet. The administrative portion of the building would be 2,260 square feet, while mechanical would be 800 square feet, and the “shell space” for future expansion would be 990 square feet.
The total square footage initially proposed by Five Bugles Design was 14,400.
At the April of 2017 fire board meeting, representatives for Five Bugles Design presented schematic designs for the new fire hall at a cost of $2.3 million for a 12,000 square-foot metal building and $3.08 million for a 12,000 square foot brick and block building.
The fire board set a budget of $1 million for a new fire station in May of 2017.
Airport lot
The village is currently working on identifying the correct right-of-way for the lot next to the airport, Krueger told the fire board at the February 15 meeting.
The transaction for purchasing the land can be completed when the fire board has obtained cost estimates for the fire station, he said.
Charles Maves, representative for the Town of Sherman, suggested someone should call Five Bugles Design to find out what is taking so long for cost estimates.
Maves said he was disappointed by the lack of communication from Five Bugles Design.
Representatives for Five Bugles said the cost estimates would be ready sometime in February, Monn said.
Monn said if he had not heard from Five Bugles by March 2, he would call the company before the next fire board meeting on March 15.
The Boyceville fire board has been working toward building a new fire station for about five years.
Krueger noted he has seen drawings for a new fire station dated as early as 2004.
Bureau of Aeronautics
Bud Gilbertson, representative for the village of Boyceville, said he had met with Kim Kaarto, an airport engineering specialist with the Bureau of Aeronautics — Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
Kaarto met with the fire board in March of 2017 at the airport and said the Bureau of Aeronautics would raise no objections to using the four-acre lot directly south of the airport and east of the former BP Convenience Store on state Highway 79.
Cedar Country Cooperative purchased the BP Convenience Store, and since then, Cedar Country has merged with two other cooperatives to become Synergy Cooperative.
Part of the plan for a new fire station by the airport would include a helipad.
At the meeting last March, Kaarto said a helipad could be built on airport land, although no part of the fire station or the road to the fire station could be on airport land.
The Bureau of Aeronautics would design the helipad and hire contractors, and the village has enough federal aviation money available that could be used to pay for the helipad, she said.
The village would have to pay five percent of the cost of a new helipad, but the federal money would pay for the remainder of the project, Kaarto said.
The road going to the helipad would be on airport land, but it was possible the road could have a dual use for the helipad and the fire station, Kaarto said at the March of 2017 meeting.
After the latest meeting with Kaarto, Gilbertson reported, there will be zero help available to the village for the road going to the helipad and fire station and there will be zero access to the airport land to get to the fire station.
Other business
In other business, the Boyceville fire board:
• Learned that after a $300,000 down payment on a new fire engine, the Boyceville fire department has approximately $70,000 remaining on hand.
• Learned that the fire department went on 71 runs last year and that there are 40 firefighters on the roster.
• Certified the firefighters’ election of officers: Corey Green (fire chief); Dan Knops (first assistant); Tim Fasbender (second assistant); Matt Rydel (captain); Matt Lunderville (lieutenant); Theo Curvello (safety; engineer); Lisa Pederson (secretary/treasurer). Green replaces outgoing fire chief Brian Marlette, who was chief of the Boyceville fire department for 12 years. Marlette has served on the Boyceville department for 30 years all together.