By John Tredrea, Special Writer
The Hopewell Township Committee is considering a request from the Pennington Fire Company (PFC) made at Monday night’s committee meeting, that the township contribute between $200,000 and $400,000 toward an expansion and renovation of the Pennington firehouse, located on Broemel Place in Pennington Borough.
The PFC asked that the township take the money from $4 million it received from Capital Health in the settlement of a tax case several years ago.
The new hospital, off Scotch Road near I-95, is in the PFC’s legally designated service area. PFC covers one-third of the township in addition to all of Pennington. For that service, the Hopewell Township Board of Fire Commissioners pays 76 percent of the costs of the Pennington Fire Company. This arrangement has been in place since fire districting was instituted in the Valley 25 years ago.
A similar arrangement exists between the township and Hopewell Borough, whose fire department also covers one-third of the township. The remaining third is covered by the Union Fire Company, located on the western edge of the 58-square mile township, on Route 29 in Titusville.
PFC member Roger Demarski, who chairs a committee the company has formed to work on the proposed expansion and renovation of the firehouse, said the project would cost an estimated $850,000. Mr. Demarski was joined making the presentation to the committee Monday by PFC Chief Jim DeForte, Deputy Chief Glenn Kraemer and Leigh Abey, PFC president.
Mr. Demarski said the proposed project includes maintenance that has been deferred for years. He said the firehouse, built in 1967, has leaks in the roof, windows and exterior walls. He said expansion of the building would solve problems of “severely cramped office space, an outdated radio/emergency operations center, lack of a legally-required ADA (American Disabilities Act)-compliant restroom, lack of a members room or ‘ready room,’ lack of a conference room and energy inefficiencies.”
Mr. Kraemer said the new hospital is “a benefit to our community.” He said local first aid squads now can get patients to a hospital much more quickly than they could before Capital Health’s hospital was built here. He added that the hospital also places significant new demands on the Pennington Fire Company. There’s a potential for “a significant emergency event” at a hospital with 1 million square feet of floor space, he said.
The new hospital, which is six stories high, puts additional significant training demands on PFC, he said. He noted that the company already has visited the hospital numerous times, and held training exercises related to the hospital, to be prepared for an emergency call from the hospital.
The hospital’s large central power plant, patient movement and relocation during an emergency, dealing with medical gases and the possibility of having to rescue people, possibly patients, trapped in elevators during an emergency are among the issues that have led to the need for the additional training, he said.
Mr. Demarski noted that a contribution of $200,000 toward the project would represent 5 percent of the monies the township received from Capital Health in the tax settlement; $400,000 would represent 10 percent. He said PFC is seeking donations from area corporations and organizations for the building project, but that money has proved difficult to raise this way in the current economic climate.
AFTER PFC’S PRESENTATION, members of the Township Committee said they would hold off on a response until they have received, from the township’s Board of Fire Commissioners, a master plan for the township on fire protection. A final report on the plan, which has been in the works for several years, is due in about one month, township Administrator/Engineer Paul Pogorzelski said.
In addition to asking for the money, the firemen also asked that the committee “publicly support” the building project. On that, township Mayor Michael Markulec said: “We’re certainly behind you” in supporting the project, but “we’d like to hear from our fire commissioners” before dealing with the decision on whether to support the project financially.
Several months ago, the township gave the school district $500,000, taken from the Capital Health tax settlement, for a new high school varsity baseball field on the grounds of Timberlane Middle School. The baseball field is being moved to make way for a new turf field on the high school grounds. The turf field, now under construction, was originally to have been built behind a row of homes on Pennington-Harbourton Road. After neighbors objected to that plan, the location of the turf field was moved further away from their houses, onto an area partially covered by the baseball field. Thus the need to move the baseball field to a new location.
Committee members Kim Johnson and Allen Cannon raised the issue of possibly “redistricting” the Valley’s three existing fire districts — the township’s, Pennington’s and Hopewell’s.
Redistricting could move the hospital into another district, the most plausible possibility seeming to be the township, since Union Fire Company is much closer to the hospital than the Hopewell Fire Department.
Committeewoman Vanessa Sandom said the Township Committee has no authority to institute new fire districts. That would have to be done via consensus among the three existing districts.
Mr. Demarski had said earlier in the meeting that, in his opinion, Pennington, which has a 100-foot tall ladder truck, or aerial apparatus, is best equipped among the Valley’s three firefighting units to respond to an emergency at the six-story hospital.
By the same token, he noted that Union, which is very near the Delaware River, is best equipped and trained to deal with water rescue operations, having boats for that and having trained extensively for years in such operations.
