RUMFORD – Town Manager Steve Eldridge recommended Thursday that the town put plans for building a new fire station on hold until a process started in Dixfield earlier this week on regionalization is completed.
The board agreed to pursue talks with River Valley towns on various ways the costs for goods or services could be reduced.
One of those ways is an idea to combine police, fire and ambulance services into one public safety building.
“We don’t want to lose identity, but combining fire or police, we wouldn’t. We’ll take it slow and see what comes,” said Selectman Jim Rinaldo, one of the Rumford representatives who attended the Dixfield meeting.
The next meeting of the 10 towns in the region has been set for 6 p.m. on Feb. 15 in the Municipal Building auditorium. Rinaldo said the Regionalism Committee agreed to rotate its monthly meetings among the River Valley towns.
Talk about a possible regional public safety building was but one of the items discussed at Thursday’s board meeting.
Eldridge suggested, and the board agreed, that the town’s 1998 Comprehensive Plan be looked at again, with an eye toward possibly updating it as part of the municipality’s goal for redevelopment and revitalization.
He said planning grants are available for a possible revision of the Comprehensive Plan as well as for downtown revitalization projects. Such grants could include economic development along with attention paid to the town’s historic architecture and other resources.
Areas that could be studied and improved include the so-called shoppers island and Waldo Street, the entrance to the town from Mexico, the Route 2 corridor from atop Falls Hill to Sunnyside Terrace, Franklin Street and the Virginia section. He said sign and facade upgrades could also be considered.
Rinaldo, who has been working with a business group to improve the design and placement of signs, plans to bring tentative plans to the next board meeting.
In other matters on Thursday, board Chairman Jim Thibodeau said he has received nearly 20 phone calls since the SAD 43 board voted to change the use of Virginia Elementary School on Tuesday.
Part of the school of about 110 students is scheduled to be used by the district’s Day Treatment Program which would have about 24 children. The elementary students would be moved to Meroby Elementary School in Mexico.
“Quite a few people are unhappy. It doesn’t make sense. I was asked to present information to the board and maybe the school board will revisit the matter,” he said.
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