Curtiss accepts fire hall offer from OWC
Fire district to start paying for utilities
Curtiss has agreed to rent out its fire hall for another year without a substantial increase in rental income, but village officials say they are going to consider what would happen if they found a future tenant besides the Owen-Withee-Curtiss Fire District.
At a special Aug. 31 meeting, the village board voted to accept a rental offer from the OWC board, which is willing to start paying for all of the utilities at the fire station but is refusing to pick up any of the maintenance costs as requested. The annual rent will stay at $16,000.
The village had requested the fire district pay for two-thirds of maintenance and insurance costs, but district officials did not feel that should be their responsibility as renters of the building.
District board members also rejected an offer to raise the annual rent by $2,000, bringing it to $18,000. That amount was based on 50 percent of what the village has paid toward the fire hall, divided over the estimated 45-year lifespan of the building.
Utilities for the building amounted to about $8,000 last year, so the district’s total financial obligation should increase to about $24,000.
Village president Betty Rettig also said the district board wanted all of the building’s utility accounts in the district’s name for the one-year length of the rental agreement.
Trustee John Unruh did not like that idea, saying it would give the fire district too much leverage in future negotiations.
“I don’t think there’s any way we’re going to change the utilities for one year,” Unruh said. “We’re not going to do it.”
Unruh said it helps that the district is willing to take on the utility payments, but overall, the offer is “not enough.”
“I don’t think what they’re proposing is something we can go with longterm,” he said. “But, from how it sounds the meeting went, it sounds like they are staunch in their statements and their disregard for the burden that Curtiss has with this fire hall.”
Although Unruh and Retting were willing to take the oneyear deal, they also wanted to have a larger discussion about possibly renting the building to another entity besides the fire district.
Village officials are convinced that they can get someone to pay more than $16,000 per year to rent the facility, but they also want to consider the effects of no longer using the building as a fire hall.
The biggest impact would be on insurance rates paid by homeowners and business owners within a five-mile radius of the station. Right now, they pay less for insurance because of the close proximity of the fire hall.
This would affect not only Curtiss residents, but those in surrounding townships such as Hoard and Green Grove.
Curtiss residents have a better fire insurance rating as well because the village has a water utility with hydrants.
DPW Larry Swarr, who has been the village’s point person on the fire hall negotiations, said district officials have repeatedly said the same thing about paying more for using the building: “If we’re going to pay this much, we want to own it.”
The village has offered to sell the building to the fire district for $1.3 million, but Rettig said district officials are not going to pay that price Swarr said the village could offer to sell the building to the district for half that price, about $650,000, in order to offload the expenses onto the district.
“Obviously, if they own it, then they’re going to be responsible for all utilities and all the maintenance,” he said. “The village might actually come out smelling better.”
Unruh, however, said that sales price would still not be enough to cover what the village owes on the building, which is about $770,000.
Swarr said he spoke to a local business owner about how much the village could get if it rented out the hall on the open market. He was told the village could get $1 per square foot per month for RV storage, ($120,000 per year for the 10,000 square foot building.) Swarr said the village also needs to make sure the grant money used to help pay for the building does not have any stipulations that would prevent the board from renting it to someone besides the fire district.
“The only one we’ve told about it is that it had be a fire hall for five years,” he said.
Unruh, who has been a vocal supporter of trying to get more money for the fire hall, said the board has a lot to consider when looking at alternatives.
“It’s going to come down to how much it would affect the residents of the village of Curtiss if we no longer have the fire association in that fire hall,” Unruh said. “That’s what it’s going to come down to.”
