Nasewaupee Board Approves Purchases for New Fire Department

Jacob Schartner.

Purchasing additional turnout gear for Nasewaupee’s new fire department, when it separates this fall from the Southern Door Fire Department (SDFD), received town board approval June 15. The board agreed to purchase eight new, complete sets of Fire-Dex firefighter turnout gear from Municipal Emergency Services for $5,075 each.        

To go along with the new department known as Nasewaupee Fire Rescue (NFR) having its own logo – designed by local artist Greg Lynch – the board agreed to pay Lynch a $1,200 design fee and also purchase 200 patches with the logo on them for $402.

Lynch said he incorporated a sunrise into the logo because the word “Nasewaupee” is derived from the Memominee tribe’s reference to the sunrise.

There will be no change in the fire-inspection services for businesses in Nasewaupee when the new fire department begins. NFR chief Jacob Schartner said the company the town board backed a contract with – Fire Inspection Service – is the same one that currently handles inspections for the SDFD.

Nasewaupee is exercising its option in the original operating agreement that formed the SDFD with the Village of Forestville and the towns of Fortesville and Clay Banks to purchase the Nasewaupee fire station and the equipment it wants to keep inside the station at their then-fair-market value.

“The fire department has gone through what we need, what we don’t need [and] what’s too high priced to give [town supervisor and acting clerk] Jill [Lau] all the information to get on a spreadsheet,” said Nasewaupee town chair Steve Sullivan.

The town board has designated Sullivan and Lau to negotiate those prices on behalf of Nasewaupee with the other three municipalities.

Sullivan said he wants to schedule a meeting with the chairs of the other three municipalities in the SDFD to finalize the fair-market value for the equipment Nasewaupee would purchase by paying 32% of that value, based on Nasewaupee being 68% vested in the SDFD.

“We’re still arguing [about] the fair-market value,” he said. “You can’t tell us you want $300,000 for a truck and then turn around and sell it [to someone else] for $200,000.”

Lau said some of the appraisals, such as ones the town obtained for trucks, include mounted equipment.

“Our price that we’ve going to offer is with that mounted equipment,” she said. “You can’t unmount it.”

The town board also accepted a $150 donation to NFR from Nasewaupee resident and retired Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources warden Tom Wilda.