Boyceville fire district schedules December 30 visit to Grantsburg fire station

By LeAnn R. Ralph

BOYCEVILLE  —  Members of the Boyceville Community Fire District have scheduled a visit on December 30 to visit the new fire station in Grantsburg.

One member of the fire district wondered at the December 16 meeting why the Grantsburg fire station is a two-story building.

 Between the time the land was acquired for the new Grantsburg station and the time the fire station was actually built, the piece of land became landlocked, said Brian Marlette, Boyceville fire chief.

The Grantsburg fire district did not have space for the building to be built on one level, so a two-story fire station was built, he said.

The Grantsburg fire station was built two years ago, has more square footage than the proposed fire station for Boyceville, and cost $1.62 million to build, Marlette said.

“Our next step will be to go and see it,” said Gilbert Krueger, chair of the fire district and the representative for the Village of Boyceville.

Krueger said he is hoping that a few firefighters from Boyceville will also be able to make the trip to Grantsburg.

“I am hoping for a mix of people, townships and fire district,” said Ned Hahn, fire district representative for the Town of Hay River.

The group plans to leave Boyceville at noon on December 30.

The trip to Grantsburg from Boyceville is about an hour and a half.

Planning

Although members of the fire district were hoping to have some help from UW-Extension in planning a public outreach and education campaign about the proposed new fire station, it now looks as if no help will be available from UW-Extension.

Mike Blechinger, representative for the Town of Tiffany, had spoken with Bill Rizzo of the UW-Extension Local Government Center at a seminar a while back about assistance for Boyceville.

As it turns out, Dunn County does not have a community resource Extension person and does not subscribe to the Extension’s Community Resource Center, Blechinger said.

There would be no charge to Boyceville if Dunn County were part of the UW-Extension Community Resources Program, but Dunn County does not participate in that program, he said.

Blechinger said he would make another telephone call to Rizzo to see if there was some basic information or a basic framework for community outreach and education that members of the Boyceville fire district could use.

Another possibility for using the UW-Extension’s service would be if another county that is part of the Community Resource Center program would sponsor Dunn County.

Because Boyceville works with Glenwood City through the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS), perhaps there would be a possibility that St. Croix County could help, he said.

Other business 

In other business, the Boyceville Community Fire District:

• Learned that the five-year planning committee had recommended the fire district advertise for bids for the design of the fire station.

• Learned that the Boyceville fire department has gone out on zero calls since the last fire district meeting in November. The fire department has gone out on 52 runs so far this year, said Brian Marlette, fire chief. Last year, the fire department had 89 runs, he said.

• Approved a motion to authorize the village clerk’s office to pay any invoices for the fire district that come in before December 31.

The Boyceville Fire District meets next on January 13 at 6:30 p.m.