The Town of Olds and Mountain View County will be discussing the possibility of the county contributing capital dollars to the new fire hall in town. A meeting between the town's fire chief, Lorne Thompson, and Tony Martens, the chief administrative officer of the county, was due to take place Monday on what the county's contribution toward the $3.2-million facility could be.
Olds council passed second reading of the borrowing bylaw for the new hall during its August 22 meeting.
Norm McInnis, the town's CAO, said discussions have been ongoing as to how the county may contribute in the future toward fire protection in light of a review of how the regional fire services operate.
“Typically they don't put money into bricks and mortar. Their commitment comes through bay rentals, so we rent a bay to them for the joint equipment that we have. We were hoping that they would see fit to make a capital contribution and that way it could bring down as much as a million dollars the capital cost,” he said.
Martens said no formal request to that effect had been forwarded to the county.
“So far there's been no request to the county, that I'm aware of,” he said, noting that the bay rental income goes into a reserve account for equipment replacement.
Requests for proposals to build the fire hall closed Thursday. As of council's regular meeting date on August 22, 14 parties had inquired about the RFP.
The town included $3.2 million in the 2011 budget for the fire hall.
