The Midway City Council voted 3-1 at a special called meeting Monday evening to approve a contract that will renovate the city’s fire station, another move in its efforts to have Midway’s fire services reinstated.
The $356,000 contract with RL Construction Group includes replacing the front garage doors to accommodate fire trucks and renovating the crew quarters inside. The project is expected to begin between late August to early September, according to a city engineer at the meeting.
The renovations are the latest move by Midway to rebuild a previously defunct fire department. In February, the Georgia Fire Standards and Training Council voted unanimously to suspend the city’s fire compliance certification after concerns of mold and asbestos in the station and a lack of proper equipment.
The council gave Midway until April 1 to show ‘significant progress’ towards fulfilling state requirements in order to be unsuspended, and Liberty County extended fire services to the city limits in the meantime.
Midway recently pulled out of a deal with the Liberty County Board of Commissioners’ that would have created a full-time fire station over 5 years, opting instead to work on rehabilitating its own service. The city leased a new fire truck amid uncertainty that it would be able to make necessary changes in time to achieve recertification.
Randy Toms, the executive director of the state’s fire standards regulator, said all personnel on the Midway department’s roster and its fire trucks have been certified by his office.
He added that the state body is satisfied with the progress the city is making and will look into lifting the city’s suspension once the station’s firefighters are insured for post traumatic stress syndrome.
Toms said so long as the station is “up and running” with a heated area to store fire trucks by the end of the 30-day agreement with the county, the planned renovations will not impact whether the station is unsuspended.
You must be logged in to post a comment.