City council worksession

​By Aimee Bingham Osinski anbingham@gmail.com
 
Monday November 25th, City Council met early for a work session.  Most of the session  was dedicated to clarification of plans for a new fire department. Most of the clarification was regarding whether or not the plans would serve the community for the next 50 years.
The fire chief, Robert Smith, stated that aside from unpredictable regulatory and technological changes, he believed it would. The plan is to use higher end material so operational costs are less in the future. It is designed for four firefighters and members of council were curious if there would be a need for four in Dexter.  The chief described situations that may require surge staffing.  He said a bad snow storm or a tornado, where he would ask firefighters to stay as long as they could.  Any natural disaster could require 4 people at the fire department.
Sean Lefere of Norfolk Homes got up to speak on the Broad St. project. He explained that Norfolk is working to resolve the parking issue and added, that if the city is interested in a city offices, Norfolk would like to give the city of Dexter first dibs. He stated with the parking issue being resolved there is some interest. He gave a timeline for the project. He expects it to be completed by spring of 2022, and the office space will be marketed soon. The mayor requested information regarding cost of adding potentially more space, potentially for a senior center. Though he wasn’t exactly sure what the seniors need or want, he’s just aware that there is a need for the seniors in the community, and if the price for space was affordable, he felt like investigating the option is sound planning and worth discussing. As time wound down, it was determined that a facilities work session should be added to the schedule to get more questions answered and possibly involve the Senior Center board in the discussion to have a better understanding of what the needs are and if it is feasible for the city to attempt to address them. There were more questions that needed to be answered regarding the fire station proposal before council members felt comfortable taking the next step and once they had answers a decision could be made on how to proceed. 

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