OXFORD – A free car wash for those who serve and protect.

For years, fire and rescue volunteers and police have been given free reign to wash their personal vehicles at the fire station.

Soon, however, that perk will be ending, the victim of complaints the practice is being abused.

Part of it has to do with appearances, officials say. Residents understood the need for the perk when the fire and rescue departments were all-volunteer. But now everyone gets paid for attendance at trainings, and when responding to fires and other emergencies.

Then too, some residents say the practice has gone beyond cars and trucks, and now includes travel trailers.

“Presumably, we do not have personnel responding to calls towing a camper trailer, or responding in a recreational vehicle,” said Town Manager Michael Huston, in a recent memo to the Board of Selectmen.

At Thursday’s meeting, Selectman Roger Smedberg asked Huston to draft a policy on water usage by the public at the town’s new Route 26 public safety building and the North Station.

It’s long been the practice to allow residents to take water at fire stations for use at home, and to allow nonprofit groups, particularly the Oxford County Fair Association, to use the water for washing vehicles, equipment or other purposes.

“I don’t have a problem with any organization wanting to use the water, but I do draw the line when people talk about the brand-new car wash we built,” Smedberg said, referring to the new $1.9 million fire station. “I don’t know what to tell people when they ask, ‘Can I wash my car there too?'”

Other residents’ eyebrows were raised when the fair association recently had tanker trucks filled at North Station to water down the new harness racing track at the fairgrounds.

Huston said the water charge for the North Station did not exceed the minimum quarterly charge, despite the extra water usage.

Caldwell Jackson, a former selectman who works for the fair association, said the association planned to pay for the water it took, in any case.

But Huston said the incident did raise the need for a written policy. What if, he asked, someone wanted to hire a tanker truck to go get water from the stations for their backyard pool?

Beth Heino, administrative assistant at the public safety building, said what is needed is a proper explanation of the problem to those fire, rescue and police personnel who now wash their personal vehicles at the stations.

“We’re not back in the ’80s anymore. I’m sure if the town explains it, they’ll understand,” she said.

ggeraghty@sunjournal.com

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