By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Fayette County commissioners last week agreed in principal to spend borrowed money for four new fire stations over the next two years.

During one of a series of budget workshops, the group tentatively agreed to include $194,000 in the fiscal 2000 budget for debt service on the stations. No financing or construction plan has yet been presented.

All four would be replacement facilities for current stations that are too small, said Jack Krakeel, director of the Department of Fire and Emergency Services.

When many of the department's stations were built 25 or 30 years ago, Krakeel said, Fayette's firefighters were all volunteers. “They were totally volunteer stations and living quarters weren't a consideration,” he said.

But now, with paid firefighters manning the stations on 48-hour shifts, the cramped quarters have become a problem, Krakeel said.

Also, station one on Ga. Highway 314 north is nestled into the foot of a dam, an unsafe situation that needs to be remedied as soon as possible, Krakeel said.

“If we do [all four stations] at one time,” he told commissioners, “we can save significant amounts of money by going with a single contractor.

It will take about 20 years to pay off the estimated $3 million debt, Krakeel said, but he added that the county's fire district tax is sufficient to make the payments without any tax rate increase.

In addition to station one, facilities slated for replacement are:

ä Station four in Fayetteville, next to the county's court complex on Johnson Avenue. Krakeel said the county already owns property on Seay Road for a new station, outside the city limits of Fayetteville.

ä Station five, Ga. Highway 85 near Bernhard Road. There's enough room at the current location for a new building, Krakeel said.

ä Station seven in Woolsey. Plans are to build the new Woolsey station on the grounds of the county's new South Fayette Water Treatment facility, under construction on Antioch Road.

Department officials are currently negotiating for new property for station one, near the current facility on Hwy. 314, Krakeel said.

Finding land for stations has become tricky in recent years, Krakeel said, as local cities annex more and more property. Ideally, stations should be spread as evenly as possible over the unincorporated areas of the county, but with cities growing rapidly through annexation, those borders are constantly shifting, he said.