Westover Fire Department to apply for fire station grant

Published 11:40 am Friday, June 26, 2009

The City of Westover Fire Department is applying for a federal grant to help build a new fire station.

Fire Chief Tim Honeycutt said the town is applying for the grant as part of the Assistance to Firefighters federal grant program. A new section of the program is providing $210 million to assist municipalities in building or renovating fire stations.

“There’s a lot of communities that will be trying to get that money,” he said. “It’s extremely competitive. There are so many cities out there that desperately need that.”

The town is requesting approximately $750,000.

Honeycutt said he would send in the application next week. The application must be turned in by July 10.

Honeycutt said he expects the federal government to begin announcing grant recipients later this year.

Westover Mayor Mark McLaughlin said the city is looking at all avenues to help the town improve.

“We’ve been progressively applying for grants to bring different things to the city. We want to hopefully capture some help from the federal government to go ahead and build the facility that we need to provide for living quarters for our fire department, to provide for the growth of our fire department,” he said.

Once funding is acquired, the new fire station will be built at the entrance of the Carden Crest subdivision.