Dix Hills Fire Department Bond Vote Postponed

The has postponed a public vote on a $20 million bond to build a new firehouse. 

The bond vote was scheduled for next Tuesday, March 8, but after a handful of public hearings, fire department officials have decided to delay the vote.

A new date has not been set.

Fire department officials declined to comment as to why the vote was postponed. However, officials posted the following statement on the fire department website:

With the Community in mind we have held a few public meetings to discuss our hopes to hold a bond vote for our new building project.  Through that process we have discovered that there are a number of common issues that the public has concerns with that we can not ignore!! 

We have discussed this with our attorney and they have advised us to "postpone" (not cancel) the vote for March 8th and reschedule a new date as soon as the law allows us!! 

In the mean time we will be looking into a number of the following issues:

*Extending the voting hours.

*The availability and use of voting machines per State Law.

*Possibly of voting at Sta. #1 & Sta. #2  as well as hdqs.

*Possibility of absentee voting.

*Getting the correct information out to the public after some misinformation has been distributed.

The DHFD constructed its headquarters on Deer Park Avenue right by the Northern State Parkway in 1956.

The building is at a point now where it is no longer up to code and it has a long laundry list of problems, according to Fire Commissioner Phil Tepe.

Tepe, a member of the Dix Hills Fire Department for 44 years and a member of the board of fire commissioners since 2004, said in January: “We have tried to fix everything many times but it has become cost-prohibitive to maintain the current building. We looked into renovating the existing headquarters to bring everything up to code and it would cost over $7.5 million. There have just been too many bandages done throughout the years and we wouldn’t be able to occupy the firehouse during the year the renovations would take. We would have to factor in the cost for a temporary facility for all the vehicles on site and all our equipment.”

As a result, the DHFD is looking for approval from the community for a 20-year bond for $19.75 million so it can build a new headquarters.

“We need to do something,” Tepe said. “It’s not just that we would like a new firehouse. We have outgrown the footprint of this building and it’s bandaged together. We can’t function like this anymore.”

Tepe added: “We’ve planned this construction not just for now, but for 10, 20 years from now. We don’t want to have to fix the building again in 10 years. A new building could last us 50 to 100 years.”

Patch will post new information on the bond vote as soon as it becomes available.