It’s going to be a while yet before Espanola and area residents learn which route council wants to follow for its new fire hall.
Council deferred making a decision on the matter during a special meeting on Thursday.
The matter will now come up again at council’s regular meeting on September 11th.
During the special meeting, council talked about four Requests for Proposals it received from businesses interested in building the new fire hall.
Council for the most part agreed that two of the bids are worth considering.
However there was no agreement on whether the new building should house a fourth bay at this time.
One concern was if council decides to add a fourth bay to the new building sometime in the future, the cost will definitely be more.
Council also heard from Fire Chief Mike Pichor who said having an additional truck would double the town’s water capacity to fight fires.
On the issue of dealing with fires, Pichor said the town had a poor fire protection service rating when coping with in-town and out-of-town fires.
Pichor said the poor rating is the result of a survey in 2016.
One factor that helps determine ratings for fire protection services is the state of a fire department’s fire-fighting equipment.