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Fate of new Webster fire station lies in voters’ hands

17 Jul

The North East Joint Fire District would like to build a brand new North Station on Phillips Road, but they can’t do it without voters’ permission.

The new station would be built at 566 Phillips Road (near Schlegel Road), a location which was purchased and cleared several years ago with the ultimate plan to use it for a new station.  The 12,600 square-foot facility would serve as a joint fire/EMS facility for the north end of the district. It would cost $5.4 million.

And that’s where the voters come in.

The district wants the Webster community to fund $4.9 million of that cost, bonded over the next 30 years. On Tuesday July 24 they’ll put that bond resolution up to a vote, and if it’s passed, hope to begin construction on the new station next summer and complete it in 6-8 months.

A public information session was held on June 14 which detailed the entire planning and design process the district has gone through to get to this point. If you weren’t at that meeting, you can see a comprehensive 35-minute narrated slide show recapping the meeting by clicking here.

One of the main questions, of course, is how much such a $4.9 million, 30-year bond would add to our taxes.  Here’s the slide that details that (click on it for a closer look):

If you’d still like more information after you watch the slide show, plan to attend the Fire Commissioners meeting on Wednesday, July 18 at 7:30 p.m. at 35 South Avenue and ask your questions there.

The bond vote will be held on Tuesday July 24 from 3-9 pm at the Webster Presbyterian Church, 550 Webster Road (Rt. 250).  All registered voters in the Northeast Joint Fire District are eligible to vote.  The district is roughly the area bordered by Hard Rd./Whiting Rd./Shoecraft to the west, Atlantic Avenue to the south and County Line Road on the east.  Click here to see a pdf of the district.

This is an important vote. There’s lots of our money involved, after all. So please get informed by watching the video or attending tomorrow’s meeting, and then get out and vote.

 

Webster’s on a wild goose chase

15 May

Baby geese are cute and fuzzy, but eventually grow into messy, aggressive adult geese.

A few days ago, as I was driving along Empire Blvd. near Abbott’s, I almost rear-ended a car which had come to a dead stop in front of me. After letting loose a few … um, highly complimentary … adjectives to describe said driver, I looked more closely and saw why he had stopped.

Two adult Canada geese and half a dozen fuzzy goslings were slowly waddling their way across the busy road.

My near-accident was a perfect illustration of the big problem Webster is having right now with geese. A recent survey of the local geese population counted about 200 resident geese in the area – those are the ones which nest locally and don’t migrate very far. Plus, this spring you can add about 50 new goslings to that number as well.

So basically we now have about 250 geese making their way around town, befouling walkways and ponds with their droppings, damaging lawns, spreading disease, and causing automobile accidents.

The survey identified several areas where the problem is particularly bothersome:

* North Ponds Park
* R.L. Thomas High School
* Willink Middle School
* Calvary Automation (Publisher’s Parkway)
* Mirrorshow Management (corner of Hard Rd. and Publisher’s Parkway)
* Webster Parks and Recreation building
* Empire Park
* Webster Park
* Webster Golf Course
* Webster Schroeder High School

North Ponds Park has a large number of resident geese.

All sorts of eradication strategies have been tried already, with limited success. The Rec Center installed decoy coyotes on their property last August, which scared the geese for a while – and some residents, for that matter. But eventually the geese caught on. More recently, the Mirrorshow Management folks strung fishing wire and tinfoil around their ponds. That worked for about two weeks. So far, nothing seems to be working for very long.

Last week, representatives from the Parks and Recreation Department brought the issue to the Town Board to see what could be done. Several possible solutions were presented, including hiring a border collie to scare away the geese (Brighton has had some success with this), putting stones around ponds (geese like a grassy habitat) and addling the eggs (spraying them with corn oil so they never hatch).

All of these plans would cost the town a lot of money. One idea, however, received a lot of support from the board members: a capture and euthanize program. With the help of strategically placed snow fencing, human sheep dogs herd geese into holding pens from which they’re collected, shipped out of town and euthanized. And the best part? Federal grant money will pay for it.

So right now, that’s the plan. Sometime in the next few months the town will conduct a catch and euthanize program at North Ponds Park. Then, once the local geese population is at a manageable level, the Rec Department will use its bag of tricks — and maybe some budget money from the town — to keep it there.

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