April 12, 2023
By: Dwayne Page
A new public safety building to house a fire truck in the Wolf Creek community could be coming in the not too distant future
USACE Partnership Request Letter
For the last several years the county commission has set aside seed money for future construction of a fire hall there and that fund has grown to $100,000. The problem has been where to build it, recruiting enough volunteers to staff it, and having a fire truck to put in it.
During Tuesday night’s county budget committee meeting, Fire Chief Donny Green said meetings have been held in recent months between the county and US Army Corps of Engineers including field representatives for Congressman John Rose in hopes of coming to terms on a partnership agreement. A deal could be reached soon under which the Corps would permit the county to build a two bay public safety building on its property near Center Hill Dam at the county’s expense but the Corps would have ownership of the building and bear the cost of utilities going forward. Under terms of the agreement, Green said the Corps wants the facility to be called a public safety building and not a fire hall so that other agencies could make use of it including the TWRA, THP, Sheriff’s Department, and Rescue Squad etc.
Although a partnership agreement has not yet been completed, Green suggested that the county continue to make plans and he recommended that the budget committee include an additional $100,000 from the capital projects fund in seed money for construction of the building in the 2023-24 fiscal year budget, subject to final approval of the full county commission.
“I would like to see us appropriate another $100,000 for that this year so that if we can work out that partnership agreement with them to have a location on the Corps property to build it then that could be a project we could get started in the next fiscal year,” said Chief Green.
“What we are looking at is called a partnership agreement with them (Corps) to where they give us the privilege of constructing a building on their land and once we build it the facility becomes their building and my understanding is they (Corps) will pay the utilities on the building. We will have a bay for a fire engine and the rescue squad can store a boat there for operations on the river. The facility will have a place for the sheriff’s office, THP, or TWRA if they are in the area and want to stop by to do paper work or use the restroom. They (Corps) want this to be for multiple agencies and that is why they want it to be called a public safety building,” said Chief Green.
The proposed location for the building is centrally located in the Wolf Creek area to serve communities on both sides of Center Hill Dam.
In order for residents to be able to take advantage of lower homeowner insurance premiums under Insurance Services (ISO) requirements, their properties must be within 5 road miles of one of the county fire department’s fire stations. Currently, the nearest county fire stations to Wolf Creek are the Cookeville Highway Station and Temperance Hall Stations.
“The biggest hurdle we have had is getting a location that will fit in a prime spot that will get us that five mile coverage back toward Big Rock Market and back toward Cove Hollow. This location is the prime spot because it addresses the problem we had with utility access. From Cove Hollow Marina to the Dam there is no utility access because all of that is Corps of Engineers property. In that area there is no electricity, water, or natural gas access. Below the Dam, where this building is to be constructed, all of those utilities are there. When you go down Long Branch Road beside the Dam, the campgrounds are on the right and the spot for this public safety building would be on the left at the location which was used for a staging area when they were doing construction on the Dam”, said Chief Green.
If the agreement is finalized and the facility is built, Chief Green said the county will have to purchase another fire truck to put there but the fire department expects to have enough volunteers to staff it.
In his other capital projects funding requests, Chief Green asked for an appropriation of $40,000 to replace a leaking metal roof on a portion of the Main Station fire hall on King Ridge Road and $7,000 to install insulation to the Belk Fire Station, which is a metal building with a concrete slab with no inside insulation.
Chief Green has also requested an expenditure for an SUV for the fire department. The cost for a new one is expected to be around $50,000.
“We currently have a utility trailer and two boats that we have to move and pull. I propose to surplus a 2006 SUV that we bought from state surplus several years ago. It has about 150,000-160,000 miles on it. We propose to surplus that vehicle and then put the new SUV into service. The SUV would be assigned to me. If we have to take the boat to the lake, I am primarily the one who gets the boat and the trailer if we have to haul some special type of equipment like generators. I spent a lot of time during icy weather taking generators around to people that didn’t have electricity that were on medical equipment. That is generally what we use that (SUV) for. I do keep it equipped with a lot of emergency equipment that we can use before an ambulance or rescue truck gets there (scene) that we can do some initial operations with so that is why it (SUV) is necessary,” said Chief Green.
The budget committee has not yet acted on Chief Green’s request.