Board OKs deal for fire training center

TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. » Town Board members have approved a lease agreement with the Ulster Fire-Rescue Center Association for use of the fire training center on Ulster Landing Road.

The contract was authorized during a meeting last week, when officials set the payment at $1-per-year through July 31, 2023.

“They had a meeting the other day where they were told by their insurance company that they didn’t have an insurable interest in the facility that they are running on Ulster Landing Road,” Supervisor James Quigley said.

“The lease that they had expired in 2009,” he said. “So the insurance company was making the case that they need a legal right to possess that property to be able to buy their fire and causality insurance.”

Under the agreement town officials will be able to terminate the lease with a 30-day notice.

“We put a five-year lease in place that is basically terminable on a ... mutual exchange of letters or notification from the county that they want the site for the county training center,” Quigley said.

The Ulster town site has a two-story burn facility, a two-story training tower, and a 2,100-square-foot administrative building. It has been run by a board of local company representatives since it opened in 1989.

The site was among alternatives listed last year in a report ordered by the county Legislature in after neighbors objected to a proposal to build a new facility in Cottekill near Ulster County Community College. Ulster County Executive Michael Hein ultimately withdrew that plan in favor of splitting functions between the town of Ulster site center and the Walker Valley training center in Shawangunk while having classes at the college.

Some residents have objected to expansion of the site has previously been controversial because there is an adjacent police firing range that has bothered neighbors and under the county plan would be moved.

There have also been concerns about expanded use of the site based on environmental concerns over use of fire fighting chemicals similar to those at Stewart Airport, where PFOA was used in a foam that ultimately ended up contaminating the reservoir that serves Newburgh’s water system.