Council seeks input on fire hall's future

The Cathlamet Town Council will hold a special meeting to discuss the future of the vacant fire hall, Mayor Dick Swart said Monday.

The meeting will be November 27 at 6:30 p.m. at the new fire hall. The council asked Swart if he would conduct a meeting at which the public is invited to attend and voice their opinions on what should be done with the Main Street station.

A focus group meeting last summer led to many ideas including a public restroom, Swart said. Many of the businesses on Main Street have restrooms that aren’t for public use, and the only public restrooms available are located at the marina, and that just isn’t convenient for people, Swart said.

The group did come up with other ideas, he said, but many conflict with each other.

“One of the first priorities I have is to make sure the needs of the town government are met,” he said. The city hall office space is entirely inadequate. There is restricted access for disabled persons, and although at this time there are no disabled employees, modifications need to be made should the need arise. Disabled customers can be served at the city hall office, but it is very minimally compliant.

The mayor has no office; nowhere to conduct interviews or meetings. The kitchen at the vacant hall has been modified where the office staff can work on budgets or accounting reports, but it is inconvenient because of customers coming and going.

“We’d like to have better office space for employees and elected officials,” he said.

The focus group said and the mayor agreed that maximum flexibility of the downstairs space is necessary. It should be available for many uses, including public meetings, public or private sector events, or charitable events. The space, although limited, could be used for all of the above.

The library has board members who are very active in the discussion of what will be done with that space.

An idea was to remove all the partitions for maximum use of the space. Another idea is to keep the wall that divides the current reading area from what was the fire departments training room and turn it into a quiet reading room or study room.

“The desired outcome of this town meeting,” Swart said, is to get some sense of the public’s reaction to the focus groups ideas and then we'll get the library board to put their recommendation to the council.”

The council will decide in January or February depending on how quickly things move, on the overall use and purpose for the building, Swart said. The input will be turned over to an architectural firm for a building assessment.

Improvements need to be made but for the most part the mayor said he believes the building is in pretty solid shape. “It was built out of high quality Douglas fir and other materials in the 1930’s.”

The cost of restoration would be borne by the town but we may be eligible for grants while making structural grants. That would be investigated, Swart said.

Last April the building was evaluated and it was decided that it is not a historical building because of changes made over the years. There is an upside and downside to this, the mayor explained.

The upside being the town would be able to design the building as desired. The downside, is there would be fewer grants available for changes or upgrades, he said.