A fresh face for the Barnum Island Fire District?

The Barnum Island Fire District is seeking to build a new meeting hall for itself and the community, spending about $400,000 of its reserves to do so.

Unless they carefully scrutinize their tax bill, it would be easy for residents of Barnum Island to not realize they have their own fire district. There are no trucks with “Barnum Island Fire District” emblazoned on the side. There are no ambulances and no fire fighters with BIFD on their jackets.

The district, which has existed for decades, provides fire services to Barnum Island by contracting with the Village of Island Park fire department. It is run by a five-member Board of Commissioners who hold monthly meetings.

According to Commissioner Bob Dexter, the board has been working on the new building for about a year. Dexter has been a commissioner for 15 years, and the current building, located at 4140 Broadway, has been around much longer than he has and is no longer in good condition.

The current building is small and takes up just a fraction of its lot. Dexter said that the new building would probably be the same size or slightly larger.

“It’s a place to hold meetings, basically,” said Dexter. “At this particular point in time, we’ve been discussing it with various parties and we would probably open it up to people and organizations within the Island Park community.”

Some residents have wondered if the new building is necessary and if the money couldn’t be better spent somewhere else. But Dexter said that the funds for the building are coming from the districts reserves, not new taxes, and that the district needs the space.

“We are required by law to hold meetings,” Dexter said. “We have to hold meetings once a month, and we have records and so on and so forth. So it becomes a question of, if we don’t have a building, what do we do?”

The Barnum Island Fire District will be holding its next meeting on Sept. 18 at 8 p.m. at its headquarters on Broadway, near the Lincoln Orens Middle School.