Motorcycle Ride And Pig Roast

Promote New Firehouse

By Kendra Bobowick

A motorcycle slips through whorls of flames, riderless, amid streaks of red, black, and white. The image stretches across a banner in firefighter Tim Hoeffel’s hands as he and Michael McCarthy, both of Newtown Hook & Ladder Fire Company, Inc, #1, tie the announcement to the side of a ladder truck Monday, August 30. They hope for a crowd at the Firehouse Ride 2010, which beckons not only to motorcycle riders, but also live music and pig roast lovers alike.

On Sunday, September 12, riders should gather at the One Eyed Pig bar and restaurant at 71 South Main Street where the ride begins and ends. Following the 40-mile trek is a pig roast and music by The Adults, which is open to all. The day is an effort to raise funds to support the company’s plans for a new firehouse.

Participants should arrive for a 9 am registration and 10 am kick-off. By noon riders will return for a pig roast, entertainment, refreshments, and raffles prizes. Online or onsite registration is $30 per bike. Passengers and general admission to the event is $15.

“Everyone is welcome, you don’t need to be on a motorcycle,” Mr Hoeffel said. For the price of admission participants can eat food including hot dogs and burgers from Swanky Franks on Route 25, and a barbecue buffet of pulled pork sliders, coleslaw, and potato salad provided by the One Eyed Pig. Bar service will be available both indoors and out. Food will be grilled and on buffet outdoors.

Register at RegOnline.com/FirehouseRide. Online registration includes a free T-shirt. Tickets for the ride will also be available during this weekend’s Labor Day Parade, September 6, or by contacting the firehouse at FireHouseRide@gmail.com. Sponsors for the event include the Botsford Fire Rescue and Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue Companies.

As Mr Hoeffel, company member Rob Manna, and Mr McCarthy put the final ties on the banner, neighboring Newtown Savings Bank’s officers approached with a fundraising donation and check for $1,000, making the bank a platinum donor.

Soon bank Assistant Vice President Brian Amey, Assistant Manager Ryan Storms, and Mr Hoeffel all held the poster-size check in front of the engine and banner. The ride and pig roast is the fire company’s first organized public fundraiser, which members hope to see continue year-to-year, Mr Manna said. They will provide guests with booklets available at the pig roast, which contain sponsor information.

According to the fire company website, NewtownHookAndLadder.com, fire company members have seen a “dramatic need” for more space. Current efforts to find more space include a trailer for storage behind the fire station and a minor addition to enlarge the old ambulance garage to house one of the pumper trucks.

“Space is at a premium,” the site states. Aside from sharing meeting space and bathroom facilities, “supplies are kept in an army of storage lockers lining the apparatus bay walls.”

The building in the parking lot behind Edmond Town Hall has foundation problems, leaking roofs, an antiquated heating system, and electrical wiring problems. “When it rains outside, we feel it inside,” members say, and when members wash the trucks indoors after an incident during inclement weather, “It will rain in the kitchen area downstairs.”

Although repairs have been deferred, members need to operate seven days a week. Hopes of building a new firehouse are “greatly hampered” by lack of funds.

 

History

The Hook & Ladder firehouse was built in the early 1930s. The Board of Fire Commissioners received the building in 1947 with the arrival of its first truck. The firehouse had previously served as both the town garage housing town highway trucks, and at times as the town jail. A small addition expanded the building after 1947 for Newtown Volunteer Ambulance. Firehouse members used their own funds for another expansion and dedication in 1969 for a larger addition on the west side of the building.

On Monday, as the fire company members rolled out the ladder truck to tie the banner in place, visible were cracks to the building’s concrete block structure, secured with heavy bolts and beams to prevent additional damage.

Recent News

The Inland Wetlands Commission has scheduled a September 22 public hearing regarding Newtown Hook & Ladder Fire Company, Inc, #1’s proposal to build a new firehouse at 12 Sugar Street (Route 302).

The fire company has submitted its application to the commission as part of the proposal to construct an 11,414-square-foot firehouse on the 9.4-acre site northwest of the Elm Drive intersection. Per the proposal, the Borough of Newtown Land Trust, Inc, and the R. Scudder Smith Family Partnership would donate land to create a site for the new construction. The land is currently undeveloped, lightly wooded, and contains wetland areas.

One year ago the Borough Zoning Board Appeals had rejected the fire company’s request for a variance at the 12 Sugar Street location. Neighborhood opposition also began regarding a variance to allow construction closer to the street than regulations normally allow. Zoning Board of Appeals members had several reasons to reject the application, citing harmony with the neighborhood’s existing character, firehouse traffic hazards, and damaging property values. The firehouse does not need a zoning variance for the proposal, but does need Borough Zoning Commission approval for the site plan. Acting as the local traffic authority, the Police Commission members endorsed a traffic study prepared for the proposed firehouse location.

The configuration of the proposed firehouse would have 8,414 square feet of space on the ground floor, with six garage bays facing Sugar Street, and the balance on a partial second floor. Twenty parking spaces would be on the site. Construction would be set back approximately 20 feet from the property’s front boundary line. The normal setback is 50 feet.

Finances

Last March, representatives of Hook & Ladder and the Board of Fire Commissioners sought financial support for the firehouse project from the Public Safety Subcommittee of the Legislative Council. The commission, not the fire company, has made the funding request, Mr Manna explained.

The firehouse project has been placed on the town’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). Under that spending plan, the town would contribute $1.5 million toward the construction project. The funding would be spread across three fiscal years, through three $500,000 increments.

The fire company has asked that the town provide $1.5 million toward the overall cost of a $2.6 million firehouse. Through the use of “value engineering” the fire company is seeking to hold the cost of the project down to $2.2 million or $2.3 million.

Over the years, the fire company had explored a range of alternatives for new quarters.

They include: constructing a new firehouse at its current site; constructing a new firehouse on town-owned land on Queen Street, and creating a new firehouse at Fairfield Hills.

Other locations that the fire company has researched include: the former Yankee Drover property on Main Street, the former Grand Union supermarket site on Queen Street, and the former White Birch Inn property on Church Hill Road, among others, according to the IWC application.

The town has five volunteer five companies — Hook & Ladder, Dodgingtown, Hawleyville, Sandy Hook, and Botsford. Each of the four other fire companies owns its firehouse, while Hook & Ladder operates out of a town-owned building.