After negative feedback from the community led LaSalle council to scrap a proposed location for an additional fire hall, the town is now looking for an alternative site.
During council's meeting on Tuesday, a number of LaSalle residents voiced their opposition to the town building a second fire hall at John Dupuis Park on Hazel St. Most concerns raised were regarding the safety of neighbourhood children.
Based on the public input, council voted against using the park location, which had been recommended to council in a report from town administration. Council then passed a resolution instructing administration to look at alternate sites.
"To be fair to administration, council had directed them to take a look at the sites of municipally owned property in the candidate area, and that's what they did," says Mayor Ken Antaya. "Now what they're going to do is look at alternate sites. I suspect, at this point, that they would be taking a look at private properties."
Antaya says the new location will most likely have be somewhat nearby to the Hazel St. location to accommodate an unmanned fire station and improve fire response time. He says, unlike John Dupuis Park, other municipally-owned property may not fit the town's requirements for a second fire hall.
"They're outside our prefered area. They will not improve our response time unless those stations are manned by full-time people," he says, adding that if the fire hall was manned full-time, it would most likely mean an increase in taxpayer dollars.
Antaya says administration will have to regroup reevaluate its direction moving forward. He says there is currently no timeline as to when administration will return to council with a report detailing a new recommended location.
"We're not doing this to upset any neighborhood... We're doing this to improve the service in our community," he says. "We're not at a point where the community is in danger, but we have to improve our response times."
