NEWBURY – Municipalities and firefighters are accustomed to negotiating over wages and benefits, but the rent on the station? And for more than a year?
What is unusual is the station and some equipment housed there are owned, not by the town, but by the firefighters – The Protection Fire Co. #1. The lease on the Byfield fire station at 44 Central Street expired on June 30. 2025.
In 2015, the town like many others moved from a volunteer fire department to a full-time staffed department, operating out of two existing stations, including the Byfield station. One at Morgan Avenue is owned by the town. The one at Central Street and some of the firefighting equipment are leased by the town.
Protection Fire Co. #1, which traces its history to 1929, submitted a bill in its first year of the new full-time structure for $150,000 a year. That paid for half of the station and several pieces of equipment owned by the fire company.
As the equipment aged out and was replaced by town-owned equipment, the lease payment went down to $80,000 and then $72,000 a year.
This year, Protection Fire Co. #1 submitted a bill for $90,000. The problem arose when the Town Meeting in the spring, which appropriates many municipal payments, was asked to approve only $70,000, which it did. And that appropriation cannot be increased except by another Town Meeting.
The town and Protection Fire Co. #1 have been negotiating for more than a year. They have taken a proposal to the member firefighters twice and both were rejected.
The SelectBoard members – Bill DiMaio, Alicia Greco, Leslie Matthews and Patrick Herrnan – assured the town residents that the impasse on the rent is not impacting the fire protection for Byfield. And negotiations continue. ♦
