Having a facility that not only Mount Vernon, but other fire departments in our area can utilize to be able to train on fighting different fires will be a boon for many departments in our area.
As Mount Vernon fire chief Nate Goodlove said – Kirkwood’s facility is great for training firefighters on a straight forward fire and to get them some field experience for rookie
firefighters. The flexibility to adapt the interior of either the rooms with fire or clean rooms so firefighters can run drills of things they may experience in real fires, though, is a world of a difference.
And while the greatest cost may be concrete, rebar and the pads, the departments will pull on those connections they have as a volunteer fire department to make this construction happen in a fiscally conservative way, even pricing out the project to be tackled in phases if prices were to spike higher due to changes on the ground from when they were first announced.
The department was within $10,000 of the estimated construction cost as of Monday, April 7’s council meeting, with a coming pancake breakfast to help raise funds. Perfect opportunity to try and see this completed in one year. And utilizing funds designated for the department in memory of a fire member is a great spend.
As well, adding yet another group utilizing the space by the public works site at Bryant is a good use of space. As Goodlove and assistant chief Jacob Buster said, the proximity to hydrants is a plus for the site, but also it’s more remote location gives officers the opportunities to train for both rural and urban fires.
Combined with the other purchase the department is making, the purchase of a ladder truck in the coming years, it will give first responders and fire departments in our area more opportunities to train and prepare for the worst days in the communities lives and improve their skills overall.
Pipe organ’s fate sad news
Crestfallen is how the editor would describe hearing the historic pipe organ not being replaced at King Chapel will be. We get it, as outlined by Jill Hawk – that $1.5 to $2 million price tag is awfully steep to tack on to the project to save King Chapel, and if the choice is more funds to save a building or just to save an instrument, we’d be on the side of saving the building as well. That project is still ongoing to make the improvements to King Chapel, and we know the costs are significant to make repairs to the century’s old building many in this community want to see saved.
But it is, as Alli Walker outlined in her article, also a huge loss to Cornell College when people might not have expected that when the organ was removed on 2021.