By Adam Swift
As Chelsea continues to grow, one city councilor wants to take a closer look at building a new fire station somewhere along the waterfront.
At last week’s meeting, District 6 Councilor Giovanni Recupero introduced a motion asking the city manager to explore the feasibility of the construction of a new fire station along the waterfront.
“The waterfront side of Chelsea does not have a fire station, it used to have one before, but they did away with it,” said Recupero.
The councilor said that side of the city, especially with residential development along Central Avenue, is growing.
“Before, the fire department used to say it is very hard to get to because it is all one-ways,” said Recupero. “I spoke to the fire chief, and he is in favor of having a small station there with at least one fire truck.”
Recupero noted that the city has stations covering other portions of the city and that it should explore building an additional small station near the waterfront.
“I hope the city manager and the fire chief will talk about it and come back to us and let us know if it is feasible or not,” Recupero said.
Councilor-at-Large Roberto Jimenez-Rivera said he would like to see a professional assessment of the need of a new station, as well as any associated staffing costs in addition to the cost of a new building before a full-blown feasibility study gets underway.
District 5 Councilor Lisa Santagate said she had some of the same questions about the costs as Jimenez-Rivera.
However, she also pointed to the lack of EMT staffing across the state and a recent tragedy in Winthrop where ambulances were not able to respond to an emergency in a timely fashion as some reasons why the city should look at building a new station.
“I feel the request (Recupero) made is important and fair as our city has grown,” Santagate said. “I don’t think we would ever be able to handle anything like what happened in Winthrop because we said no to increasing the amount of emergency vehicles so that we could service the city quickly.”