FARMINGTON — Farmington's town survey, which goes out to residents by October 9, will ask them to rate the condition of the town's public buildings, the fire stations among them. It arrives as a separate town committee plans a $30 million to $35 million overhaul of three of those stations, a project voters will have to approve.
Town Manager Kathleen Blonski, who sits on that building committee, told the committee writing the survey on Wednesday, September 30, what a good grade for the stations would mean. If residents rate the buildings highly "when we know they're not in good shape," she said, "that tells our building committee we really have a marketing issue," one that requires telling the public "that our fire departments are literally falling apart."
The question
The survey, which will help shape the Town Council's strategic plan and the town's next ten-year land-use plan, lists 14 entries under "actively used public buildings." Residents rate each as excellent, good, fair or poor, or answer that they don't know. The list runs from the elementary schools and Irving A. Robbins Middle School to the highway garage, both libraries, the police station and Town Hall.
The fire stations share one entry. The draft names five: Oakland Gardens, East Farms, Farmington, Tunxis Hose and South West. The overhaul covers three of them, replacing the East Farms and Tunxis Hose stations and renovating the Farmington station, which sits in the town's historic district. The other two are not part of the plan. Because the project would be paid for by borrowing, it needs voters' approval at a referendum, and the building committee has been aiming for a 2027 vote.
Will residents know?
One of the zoning commission members on the survey committee doubted residents could judge. "The public's not going to know if they're in good condition or not," the member said.
"This is an interesting thing," Blonski said, "because typically the public loves the fire department." Farmington's department is mostly volunteers, backed by nine full-time career firefighters and EMTs. If respondents rate the buildings well because they are "thinking that they're rating the volunteer fire department," she said, the building committee would learn how much explaining it has to do.
Committee chair Patti Boye-Williams, a Town Council member, said listing the buildings has value even if many residents answer "don't know," because it shows them what the town owns. The committee approved the building question with only a labeling change.
Where the survey will be
Assistant Town Manager Kat Krajewski presented the survey's outreach plan on Wednesday: about 29 events starting October 17, each staffed by two volunteers, with postcards and yard signs carrying a QR code to the survey. The calendar includes high school football games, Tunxis Mead on Saturdays, coffee shops, a care fair at the senior center, a recreation department fall festival, early voting at Town Hall and polling places on Election Day. It also includes a fire department car show and breakfasts held by the Farmington fire department on November 1 and by Tunxis Hose, Unionville's volunteer company, on November 15. Krajewski said some dates were still being confirmed.
What the town has said about the stations
The case for the overhaul went to the Town Council in May, from an ad hoc committee that had spent 16 months studying the stations. According to its presentation, the stations had received only basic maintenance since the early 2000s and faced aging heating, cooling, plumbing, electrical and roofing systems. The presentation also said a modern station is expected to keep firefighters' living quarters and contaminated gear separate from the apparatus bays, which the current buildings were not designed to do, as the Mercury reported.
The plan has drawn at least one public challenge. At that May meeting, resident Tim Kelly urged the council to study consolidating to two larger stations, one on each side of the Farmington River, an option he said the ad hoc committee never seriously examined.
The building committee's schedule, set in July, had it interviewing a shortlist of architects in early October. After design and pricing comes the referendum, with 2027 the working target. 🚒
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road, the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. Farmington is about to ask residents to grade its buildings. Farmington Storage would note that its own building is graded every day by the things kept inside it, and none of them have complained. 860.777.4001 📦
Jack Beckett has covered Farmington's fire station plan from the ad hoc committee to the building committee, and has never once been asked to rate a highway garage. He expects that to change this month. Third coffee. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town nobody else is covering: the survey question, the building behind it and the referendum after that. We publish slowly and without apology. Always last to breaking news, thorough about everything else. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell your neighbors. #WeAreFarmington 📰