Lexington FD Gets New Tanker, Exploring New Highway Garage

LEXINGTON - Volunteer firefighters from the Town of Lexington Fire District check out their new 2,000 gallon tanker.

LEXINGTON - It isn’t necessarily a bad thing that government leaders in Lexington are getting antsy about the new highway department garage.

Their eagerness to begin the multi-million dollar project is welcome and understandable but merely not doing them much good.

Town supervisor JoEllen Schermerhorn reported, at a meeting last week, that a strict timeline has been set for launching aspects of the effort.

That startup schedule of March 25 is linked to $1,131,662 the town has been awarded through the State Department of Environmental Conservation Climate Smart Communities grant program.

Local taxpayers need to come up with the rest of the estimated $2.26 million cost which is partly why officials are feeling all aflutter about initiating whatever can be initiated.

There is a lot to do, most importantly, seeking and hopefully finding other outside funding sources while also having talks with banks and potential bond counsellors related to securing bonds for eventual borrowing.

That element is being diligently researched, and the design of the structure has already been accomplished by Lamont Engineers.

But things like actually putting the job out to bid must wait which is enough to make grown women and men fidgety, and not exactly sitting still.

A special building committee formed in relation to the project is tentatively slated to assemble soon, leading up to the town council’s next regular monthly meeting on April 1.

As the various details unfold, enthusiasm has not waned for the new garage which was already considered long overdue.

Schermerhorn, when the DEC grant was announced in December, said she was “ecstatic” about the windfall which was seeming like a pipe dream following so many years of wishing.

“This happened because of many people working together,” the supervisor said at the time, currently continuing to praise the engineering firm, members of special committee and the community as a whole.

The need for upgrades in the highway department dates back two decades and more, to the period when the late Kenneth Becker was supervisor, searching diligently for external economic help.

It was well known the old highway garage, located along Route 42, had been the target of multiple flooding incidents, most dramatically in the summer of 2011 and Tropical Storm Irene.

Becker’s earlier town board efforts set the groundwork for current plans to have the Department of Environmental Protection buy that property thru their flood mitigation program.

Lexington’s road department is currently spread out, housed primarily in makeshift quarters at Mosquito Point, along Route 23A, while using the deteriorating Route 42 structure for some storage.

There is also a modern winter sand storage building along Greene County Route 13 where the new facility will be constructed.

Lexington’s new home base will be a single story 58-by-152-foot wood-framed structure constructed to the southwest of the existing salt shed,” documents from Lamont Engineers state.

“The building will have six 16-foot-wide by 14-foot-tall truck bays, as well as administrative/office areas, storage, a break room, and unisex restroom with shower,” Lamont Engineers states. 

Dollars brought in by the sale of the old garage to DEP will be invested in the new facility, and after the new headquarters are done, the Mosquito Point building can be sold, recouping more money.

In other matters:

—Town council members reported the purchase of a firefighting truck by the Lexington Fire District, taking delivery on February 28.

The new, 2025 vehicle is a 2,000 gallon tanker, armed with a capacity to pump 1500 gallons per minute, according to fire chief Paul Dwon.

It has a Kenmore chassis and was purchased from Bulldog Fire & Emergency Apparatus in Albany on a $400,000 bond.

The bright and shiny red rig - more gleaming than the rest of the fleet only because it is au courant - replaces a 1995 Mack tanker that will shortly have a different home in the State of Washington.

—Town council members reported the retirement of longtime highway crewman Allen Cross, a hometown Lexingtonian, possessing over a quarter-century of service. His last official day is March 31.