Fiscal Court visits Rescue building

Trigg County Judge-Executive Hollis Alexander wondered aloud about the ceiling at the Trigg County Rescue Squad building on Canton Road.

“Does it leak everywhere?” he asked.

“Yeah,” came the reply.

The judge and several magistrates visited with rescue personnel last week to walk through the building on Canton Road and see what kind of shape it’s in.

The 60-year-old building has had at least three additions during its six decades. There are issues with its plumbing, electrical and sewer systems and insulation, and the roof leaks — a lot.

The facility’s property also lacks the space needed to keep trucks hooked to their trailers and ready to go; one of the squad’s trailers is being kept elsewhere.

In the wintertime, heating the building poses its own set of problems.

“There are so many holes and cracks and crevices, it’s almost impossible to heat,” observed Trigg County Rescue Chief Steve Skinner, who said he would rather have a new rescue facility than see repairs to the current, aging facility.

The chief said he’d like to see a new facility somewhere that the county already owns land so any funds could be invested in the new building itself.

The county owns land in front of the county garage, Skinner noted, adding that if the county had to buy land, the purchase would take money away from any new rescue building.

Emergency Management Director David Bryant said he believes it’s more feasible to go with a new building, but he will be happy with whatever decision the county makes in the matter.

The county owns the current facility and everything in the building, Bryant said, so it is the county that must make a decision about the facility.

The rescue squad falls under the oversight of emergency management.

Bryant notes that rescue is a necessary service in the community. One never knows when someone will need to be extricated from a car or when a loved one might go missing, Bryant said.

He noted last week that county magistrates had not been to the rescue building and weren’t aware of the issues.

“They didn’t know what we were having to do with operating out of this building the way it is and how much repair there is needing to be,” he said.

Magistrates Cameron Sumner, Alana Baker Dunn and Mike Lane visited the facility on Sept. 13 along with the judge.

Alexander noted that “it’d be a whole lot of money just to get started here.”

Lane said he thinks the squad needs a new facility, and he inquired about grants to support a building project.

He said he’d like to make sure that there aren’t funds out there somewhere that the county might not be aware of.

“With everything y’all do for the county, I’m ready to support y’all to have a nice place and all that,” Lane said.

Bryant said that, as a non-profit, the squad has to raise its own funds, but he said he would appreciate anything that could help the squad with its needs.

If a new building does come to fruition, Skinner knows what he’d like to see.

He wants bay doors on both sides of the facility so that trucks can be pulled through and will be ready to go when the squad is needed in an emergency.

“Christian County just built a new building up there, and then East Golden Pond, their building is basically the same thing,” Skinner said of those facilities.

Both have open spaces where they can leave their trucks and trailers hooked up.

Their buildings are deep.

At East Golden Pond, there are the drive-thru bays with doors on both sides.

“I would like to see something like that, the rescue chief said.

Reach Tonya S. Grace at 270-887-3240 or tgrace@kentuckynewera.com.