Time to step up

Thursday, March 4, 2010

On Tuesday, Milford voters have a chance to tell their firefighters and their ambulance personnel how much they appreciate them by voting to buy land for a combined fire/ambulance complex adjacent to the existing fire station.

The Board of Selectmen, by a vote of 4-1, favors the purchase, as does the town’s Facilities Committee. The advisory Budget Committee is divided and the chairman said the time is not right because of the poor economy.

But the economy, particularly that part of it involved with real estate, tells us that now is the time to buy this land. Unless we are in more serious trouble than we believe, the market price of real estate is going to go back up and that will make it more expensive to acquire land for a fire/ambulance complex.

Now is the time to buy.

Those who oppose the bond are right to be concerned about people’s ability to pay a higher property tax, but the initial cost of the bond to buy the land doesn’t kick in until next year and, we believe, things will be better then.

But even if they’re not, there is something to keep in mind: Milford must expand the ambulance and fire facilities eventually. The town continues to grow and more people and more equipment are going to be needed to protect its citizens and property.

If we continue to put off building, the costs will continue to climb, and we will end up with either a more expensive building or a lesser building at the same cost. And lesser, generally, isn’t better.

It is not as if the fire and ambulance services are asking for a Taj Mahal here. They want a facility that will allow them to better serve us. And they deserve it. They risk their lives for us, and we need to give them a place to work that would rise to our level of expectation if we had to work there.

It is also important to keep the fire and ambulance crews in the center of town, something that Selectman Tim Finan referenced.

“The vast majority of both fire and ambulance calls are concentrated near the center of town,” he said in response to questions e-mailed to him, and other selectmen, by our Kathy Cleveland.

Plus, the Facilities Committee looked at 30 potential sites around the town and came to the conclusion that the existing fire station site, plus contiguous land, was the best.

We agree.

We know that in tough economic times, it is almost a knee-jerk reaction to say no. Heck, in better economic times, Milford said “no” to a new police station several times but finally did the right thing for its men in blue.

Well, now is the time to do the right thing for our fire and ambulance personnel, morally as well as economically. It’s a good investment in land and it’s a good investment in people.

We want our ambulance personnel and our firefighters to want to give their time and effort to Milford. Let’s show them how much we appreciate it.

Ah, if only

By now, all New Hampshire residents probably have their power back. Or got it back and lost it again. Who can tell with New England weather?

What we can tell is that as soon as power is lost, the line crews from our power companies seem to be on the job. And time and temperature don’t seem to make a difference – the power goes out, they go out and work hard to restore it.

As is the case with our local and state road crews who bail us out when snow clobbers the roads, we have a lot to be thankful for when it comes to power outages: the men and women who climb into the night and reattach wires and put in new telephone poles get the job done as quickly as possible no matter what the conditions.

Sure, when we have no power our first impulse is to curse the darkness and then the people who haven’t yet brought us the light. That’s natural. We all want someone to blame and it’s kind of hard to get riled at Mother Nature. She doesn’t care. It’s a lot easier to call PSNH and yell at someone, even if it’s just a disembodied recorded message.

But the fact is, the men and women of our power companies do a darn good job of bringing back the light and the heat.

OK, be irked when the power’s out. It’ll make you feel better to vent, of course. But once it’s back, say thanks to someone you know was out in the cold of night getting it back for you.