Fire station committee approves outreach timeline, green‑lights public survey after debate over cost and reach

The Tyngsborough Fire Station Building Committee on June 22 voted to adopt a community listening timeline and approved a public feedback form after an extended discussion about how best to reach voters who rejected the previous station proposal.

Chair opened the meeting by outlining a seven‑week listening phase that would culminate in a joint meeting with the Select Board on Aug. 10 to present the committee’s findings and recommendation. The committee settled on multiple outreach formats: a virtual session, an evening session at Town Hall, a Saturday morning session at the Center for Active Living, optional one‑on‑one meetings with staff or fire leadership, and a broadly distributed online feedback survey planned for release the week of June 25.

Resident Billy Crawford, speaking during citizens’ time, told the committee that town election results rejecting the proposal should be respected and urged the group to “slow down” and develop a more cost‑effective plan. “Votes of the electorate should not be considered random and they should be respected,” Crawford said.

Committee members debated whether to send a mailer with a prepaid return envelope or use postcards with a QR code. Staff estimated a full mail‑back survey with prepaid return postage would cost roughly $6,000–$6,500 and said that cost could be paid from the remaining schematic‑design appropriation. Committee discussion made clear that the town meeting had approved about $300,000 for schematic design; the H2M contract consumed roughly $288k, leaving approximately $11,000 for administrative follow‑up but not for a full new design.

Members differed on whether that postage expense was warranted. One committee member called a full mailer “a colossal waste of money,” while others urged a multi‑pronged approach — online survey with QR code, printed copies at town facilities, targeted postcards and continued opportunities for in‑person comments — to widen participation beyond people who attend meetings or vote in town elections.

The committee spent significant time shaping the survey itself: whether to require answers, add a “prefer not to say” option, capture ranked priorities (committee consensus favored asking respondents for a top‑three list of factors), and include questions that would allow planners to learn whether changes to cost, scope or location would change a prior no‑vote into support. Staff recommended the survey be concise (about five minutes) and to keep optional open‑ended fields for additional comments.

After discussion the committee voted to approve the proposed timeline and then to approve the feedback form and its release process; both motions passed by voice vote. Staff said it would post the survey in the agreed format, circulate it for committee review of the flow, and begin collecting responses with the goal of returning analyzed results before the committee’s late‑July/early‑August meetings.

Next steps: the committee will collect and review survey data, hold the scheduled listening sessions and meet with the Select Board on Aug. 10 to present consolidated findings and recommendations. If public feedback indicates major design changes are necessary, the committee acknowledged it will need to return to the Select Board to seek additional funding for any new schematic design work.