Having sold its longtime Everett Drive facility to the township, Twin W First Aid Squad will save the proceeds from the sale to support future EMS volunteering efforts in West Windsor. The township recently purchased the 2.85-acre property for $700,000, and Council unanimously introduced the two ordinances for acquisition at its July 13 meeting. A public hearing is set for Monday, August 3.
Twin W effectively disbanded in March after the township withdrew its support (The News, April 3). The acquisition of the rescue squad’s facility is expected to resolve the needs of the township’s Fire and Emergency Services division. The township had previously been considering the construction of a new EMS building, at an estimated cost of more than $2 million, next to the existing firehouse on Clarksville Road (The News, December 19, 2014).
“We’re being opportunistic,” Council President Bryan Maher says. “This speeds up the relocation of offices and EMS equipment. We will put in $200,000 or $300,000 to improve the facility, and the township easily saves $1 million and a year of our time.”
Currently the township’s ambulances are stored outside the municipal building, having vacated the Twin W building after the township shut the squad down. Additional hazmat equipment and water rescue boats are stored in the bay garages adjacent to the West Windsor Arts Center, which has been urging the township to turn the space over for arts expansion. The former Twin W site is not large enough to accommodate firetrucks.
“The goal is to get everything out from both the municipal building and the arts council very quickly,” Maher says. “We expect Spiezle [the architecture and planning firm] to do an assessment of what is at the Twin W site relative to the space needs we have. My suspicion is most if not all the equipment EMS has will fit there.”
Business administrator Marlena Schmid says the township expects to close the transaction by the end of September. The township first needs to survey the property and inspect the facilities. In addition, according to Division Manager Jim Yates, the township has a preliminary layout for the site that include minor interior renovations within the existing footprint. Also planned is the attachment of a pre-engineered steel building that will serve as a temperature-controlled vehicle bay for the equipment currently stored at the Arts Center.
The township’s EMS staff is expected to relocate to Everett Drive. EMS personnel are currently sharing space with the Health Department, and conditions are cramped. There are 14 EMS staffers, though the EMS responders and fire inspection team rotate shifts. Yates estimates seven EMS staffers are present during the day.
In the already cramped work space, the EMS division added a third platoon to cover the emergency calls previously handled by Twin W, which operated from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. on weekdays and 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. on weekends. In the past few months, Anthony Chrepta, Linda Sullivan, and Josh Jamison have been hired as full-time EMTs. Their salary is $43,000 each.
Brian Magnin was recently promoted to lieutenant and will lead the newly created third platoon.
Yates says a volunteer EMT unit is “a parallel priority.” The goal is to establish a group by the end of the year, though at the moment it is unclear how many volunteers the EMS division will have.
“As soon as we move in, we’ll be ready to start the volunteer unit, start the program that everyone is anxious to have done,” Yates says. “That will provide a location for the volunteers and make sure their needs are addressed.”
Township attorney Michael Herbert said a title search was done and no public monies were spent when Twin W originally purchased the property. He also added that nonprofits, upon dissolution, are required by law to give excess money to another nonprofit, though Twin W has no immediate plans to dissolve.
According to squad president and deputy chief Brian Solomon, the proceeds from the property sale will be saved for the time being, as the trustees want the money to support a volunteer EMS presence in West Windsor.
“We want to put the money away in case the volunteer component, or Twin W, resurrects itself,” Solomon says. “There’s no real rush to disburse the money. West Windsor residents have been very generous to the squad, and we want the money to stay for West Windsor first aid in some way. If the town wants to create a volunteer component, $700,000 would be important seed money to accomplish that.”
Another possible scenario, Solomon says, is the return of Twin W on a smaller scale, if residents and the township desire an alternative to paid EMTs operating 24/7.
The squad has four trustees who will determine what happens to the money: head trustee Larry Hollander, lieutenant Joe Francisco, John Ling, and Bob Cooper.
Currently, the disbanded squad is working with the Plainsboro Rescue Squad to continue the bicycle rescue team.
“We have bikes, but no squad behind it. We’re trying to put our resources to keep that going,” Solomon says. “If you need two EMTs on standby for any event, it’s a cheaper alternative than an ambulance. Bikes can get places where the ambulance can’t get to, like if there’s a 5K you can deploy an EMT to different spots on the race route. They can go into wooded or hiking areas to search for lost persons. They have everything an ambulance has but a stretcher.”
