ESD #1 in Stalemate over Community Needs Assessment

By Gloria Way

  Just like last month’s meeting, the board of the Chambers County Emergency Services District #1 (ESD#1) in Winnie, discussed and tabled an item to engage a Community Needs Assessment consultant to analyze the needs of the district. This all began when the WS Volunteer Fire Department’s Fire Chief Greg Holloway presented the board with the “need” to purchase a ladder fire truck for the district a couple of months ago. The estimated cost would be $1.5 million.

  Because of the cost, a lot of discussion has taken place about the need for a ladder truck. Not only would the truck itself cost about $1.5 million, but the current building is not able to accommodate such a truck, and, all board members agree that there would need to be a new building to be built for the truck, which brought up the ongoing discussion of whether or not the board is going to build a new facility.

  Holloway has said since the discussions began that it would be a waste of money to hire an outside consultant for a community needs assessment. He states that he and his team are aware of the needs due to their involvement within the community. The cost of a consultant would be between $40K to $53K. The board agreed once more to table Item #9 to engage a consultant and instead agreed to approach an individual in Jefferson County who does this type of work for his opinion as to whether or not an independent outside consultant is needed.

  Regardless of what a possible needs assessment would determine, all board members agree that a new facility is a priority. The current site is not large enough to hold any additional firetrucks the district may purchase in the future. Board members said they would have no trouble selling the land it is on but need to determine where a new facility should be built.

  In other business, the board approved the 2023-2024 audit prepared by Robert Moreno CPA. The district received a clean opinion. The audit stated that ESD#1 has $2.4 million in its accounts.