Houlton Fire Department given OK to access funds

    HOULTON, Maine — The Houlton Fire Department may not be getting a training facility, but at least they can now access the money set aside for that purpose.
Town councilors approved releasing nearly $10,000 to the fire department at its Sept. 13 meeting.
According to Fire Chief Milton Cone, back in 1999, the town solicited donations for the purpose of building a fire training facility.
“The money had been sitting in a dedicated account for quite some time,” Cone said. “The original intent was to build a training facility on property located at the [Houlton International] airport. When we started the process, we found the property had not been released by the [Federal Aviation Authority] for us to use. That held things up.”
In the meantime, neighboring Hodgdon Fire Department built a training facility behind its station and allowed the Houlton firefighters to use it, Cone said. The Houlton department also utilized an abandoned piece of property adjacent to its barracks.
“We had other avenues available, so we didn’t have to spend the money on a training facility at that time,” Cone said.
The town council reallocated a total of $13,747.51. Of this amount, $9,747.51 will go to the fire department and $4,000 will be used for Riverfront Park projects at the request of the Houlton Rotary Club. An additional $1,200 was refunded to various donors who declined to release the money.
Cone said his department would use the nearly $10,000 as seed money in the hopes of securing larger grants that require a local match. In so doing, the department may be able to obtain an even larger sum of money, without asking for local funds to match.