By JOAN McCOY
Leader staff writer
The weighty issue of reinstating Cabot’s impact fee only for the fire department was not mentioned during Thursday’s brief meeting of the city council’s fire and police committee.
Alderman Ken Williams, chairman of the committee, said after the meeting that he was surprised to learn that Mayor Eddie Joe Williams was even considering reinstating part of the fee.
The city council voted 7-1 in April to repeal the 2006 ordinance establishing impact fees to pay for expansions in infrastructure needed because of growth. The council did not even consider a proposal from a committee formed to investigate the impact fee to allow it to double as scheduled but then remain at that rate for 24 months until another funding source could be found.
Alderman Williams said after the 30-minute-long committee meeting with reports on the calls taken by fire and police during the first quarter that he isn’t convinced building another fire sta tion on Hwy. 5 is crucial. The city has purchased a building there to house a fire engine, he said, adding that if it becomes necessary to also staff the engine, the building can be remodeled for that purpose.
Although the city has offers of free land for a fire department, that land might not be suitable for construction, the alderman said.
And without a definite place to build, talk of funding a fire station is “putting the cart before the horse,” he said.
City officials learned in 2006 that the insurance premiums for residents more than five road-miles from the nearest fire station could double or triple.
Acting on advice from Insurance Services Office (ISO), which rates cities’ fire protection for insurance purposes, the city rented a bay at the Mountain Springs Volunteer Fire Department for $200 a month and then early in 2007 paid $259,600 for three acres and buildings on the corner of Hwy. 5 and Mountain Springs and moved an unstaffed engine to that location.
But eventually, the city will have to build another fire station, and that, the mayor says, will cost $1.5 million for the building, $1 million for equipment and $500,000 a year for the firefighters who will staff it.
Alderman Tom Armstrong, who was on the council when the impact fee was approved and was the only alderman who voted against it, said he is opposed to trying to bring back part of the fee and thinks doing so could be illegal.
“I don’t think we can do it,” Armstrong said. “We abolished the whole ordinance from 2006 and I don’t see how we can put part of it back without another study.”
The city hired experts to decide how much the fee should be and which city departments it should go to.
Armstrong agrees with Alder-man Williams that the city should staff the building on Hwy. 5 when it becomes necessary. That building should suffice for several years until new homes are built more than five miles away from it.
By then another funding source might be available, said Armstrong who says if the state legislature approves a 1 percent real estate transfer tax in 2009, the city could gain revenue from the sale of every house in Cabot, not just the new ones. Such a tax would be less than the impact fee but not restrictive so the city could use the revenue wherever it is needed.
