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Provincetown Fire Department

    COMBUSTION

    Chief Trovato and 18 Volunteer Firefighters Quit

    Former Deputy Chief Jimmy Roderick to become interim chief on July 2

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — In two separate letters, Provincetown Fire Chief Mike Trovato and 18 members of the town’s “call,” or volunteer, fire dept. announced their intention to resign as of midnight on July 2.

    Deputy Fire Chief Jimmy Roderick, left, and Fire Chief Mike Trovato at town hall in January 2023. Roderick resigned as deputy in March, but he will now become acting fire chief on July 2.

    Trovato, who joined the fire dept. in 1975 and has been chief for 33 years, sent his resignation letter to town staff on June 17.

    At the June 24 select board meeting, 15 volunteer firefighters led by Firemen’s Association President George Felton came to the front of the room during the public comments period and announced they would resign from the department as well, citing Town Manager Alex Morse’s effort to abolish the board of fire engineers at town meeting on April 1 and subsequent conflicts between Morse and Trovato.

    “We suggest the select board and town manager take immediate steps to fix this situation, and also issue a public apology to Chief Trovato,” the letter from the 18 firefighters concluded.

    Signers of the letter include nearly the entire leadership of engines 1, 2, 3, and 5, according to the call dept. roster on the town’s website.

    The select board had scheduled an executive session for its July 24 meeting to discuss with Trovato “personnel issues raised within the fire dept.,” Morse told the Independent. Trovato was notified of that executive session and submitted his resignation rather than attend it, Morse said.

    Trovato told the Independent that he did not want to quit, but he felt Morse did not want him to serve as chief any longer.

    “I really didn’t want to retire, but when your boss tells you that you’ve ruined the department you spent 49 years to build, that you’ve created a hostile work environment, and that it would be in the best interests of the town and the fire dept. that you retire, what do you think I’m going to do, hang around?” Trovato said. “He pushed me out the door.”

    Trovato said the criticisms were made during a May 2 meeting between Trovato, Morse, and Assistant Town Manager Dan Riviello.

    Provincetown’s human resources director Katie Buckley helped arrange that meeting but was not present, Trovato said.

    Morse and Riviello said they did not tell Trovato at that meeting that he was “ruining the department” or that it was “in the best interest of town that he retire.”

    “We never used either of those phrases when meeting with the chief,” Morse told the Independent. “It’s unfortunate if that’s what he took from that conversation, but we merely raised issues brought to us to him. He was the one who said he thought it would be best if he retired.”

    Those issues included a complaint from inside the department over the speed at which the town’s new full-time firefighters are being trained to assume certain duties, including driving fire engines, Trovato told the Independent.

    “I know my personnel’s capabilities, and I know when someone’s ready to drive a fire truck,” Trovato said. “We were working on it.”

    Riviello told the select board on May 28 that concerns about the training being afforded to full-time staff were the reason the May 2 meeting was called.

    “We respect Chief Trovato and the call volunteers,” Rivello said, “but we also respect our new full-time staff and have concerns about their training.”

    Meeting Fallout

    The differing accounts of that May 2 meeting have contributed to the present divide.

    Eighteen members of the volunteer or “call” fire dept. signed a resignation letter that Firemen’s Association President George Felton read aloud to the select board on June 24. From left: Capt. David White, Lt. Vaughn Cabral, Lt. George Felton, Firefighter Malcolm Hunter, Firefighter Mark Lambrou, Capt. Roger Martin, Lt. Jeff Notaro, Firefighter Noah Santos, Firefighter Frank Horner, Firefighter Max Cliggott-Perlt, Firefighter Jonathan Sinaiko, Firefighter James Meads Jr., Firefighter Paul Roderick, and Lt. James Richmond. Not pictured are District Chief Russell Zawaduk, Firefighter Nate Caley, Firefighter Myles Santos, and Junior Firefighter Mason Santos. (Photos by Paul Benson)

    The Provincetown Firemen’s Association wrote a letter objecting to Trovato’s treatment on May 2 that was read aloud by Firefighter Malcolm Hunter at the May 28 select board meeting.

    The resignation letter that Felton read to the select board on June 24 also cited the “extreme disrespect” that Trovato was shown that day.

    “We believe Chief Trovato has never made the fire dept. a hostile workplace,” the resignation letter said, “and rather than go by the words of one or two members, Morse should have reached out to the department as a whole to get the opinions of everyone.”

    Morse told the select board on June 24 that “there are two sides to the story. I welcomed the fire chief to stay, and today I met with former Deputy Chief Jimmy Roderick, who agreed today to come back to the department to help retain our call volunteers.”

    Roderick will serve as acting fire chief beginning July 2, Morse confirmed the next day, and EMS coordinator Othaine Rance will be deputy fire chief.

    Roderick and Rance will both be on the board of fire engineers, Morse told the Independent, as will “call” firefighter Capt. David Gonsalves, EMS shift supervisor Michael Anderson, and Human Resources Director Buckley.

    “A lot of folks think we’re going to bring some bogeyman in from out of town and that’s going to change the entire department,” Morse told the select board on June 24. “We have the talent internally, and the volunteer firefighters who resigned today are invited to my office tomorrow to have a conversation about what they need to stay in this department.”

    The Decision to Retire

    In a statement posted on the town’s website on June 25, Morse wrote that “per state law, Chief Trovato would have had to retire less than a year from now.” Trovato is 69, and a special extension to the state’s mandatory retirement age for fire chiefs will expire when he turns 70 next June.

    The department still has 20 career firefighter-medics, two staff people, and 27 call volunteers, Morse wrote. The firefighter-medics were hired over the last year as part of a long-term plan for a “combination department” that will include full-time staff “supported and supplemented by call volunteers,” Morse wrote.

    Morse also wrote that he was disappointed in the firefighters who publicly resigned on June 24.

    “Using the public comment period of a meeting to announce their retirements” was meant to scare people, Morse wrote. “While cynical, I understand that the goal of their tactics was to capture the attention of the public and instill fear throughout our community.

    “It’s my job to make sure residents know that we are confident in our ability to provide the needed fire and EMS coverage as we approach peak season in Provincetown,” Morse continued.

    Morse also wrote that he hoped the volunteers’ “allegiance to the town will outweigh their allegiance to one man who made the decision to retire.”

    The letter from the firefighters who resigned says they believe Trovato was told to quit.

    The select board did not discuss the resignations at length on June 24 as it was not on their agenda, but they did speak about it in their opening statements.

    “Things will change at the fire department, they will evolve and they have to, but we need to make room for the people who have been protecting us and serving us for so long,” said select board member Erik Borg.

    “Change is hard, and I was hoping this could have been a respectful process,” said board member Leslie Sandberg. “This is sad, what happened tonight.”

    SCALING UP

    Provincetown Prepares to Build Its EMS Capacity

    Report recommends adding 16 emergency medical staff

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The select board and other town officials are now backing Fire Chief Michael Trovato’s call to create a full-time emergency medical services department with 16 new staffers.

    This means the end of the 85-year partnership among Provincetown, Truro, and the nonprofit Lower Cape Ambulance Association (LCAA). Trovato has been seeking this change since 2018, but it took a report from consultant Tom Impey of Capital Strategic Solutions to tip the balance.

    “It is not rocket science,” Trovato told the Independent. “I have been telling them this for years, but if they hear it from someone they hired from over the bridge, then they will listen.”

    Provincetown pays LCAA nearly $1 million a year for backup ambulance services. In addition, LCAA collects the fees for every ride to Cape Cod Hospital. Leaving the LCAA would thus bring $1.2 million a year into the Provincetown Fire Dept. accounts, Deputy Fire Chief Jimmy Roderick told the select board on April 25.

    That is nearly enough to pay 16 new emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics, which would cost $1.4 million, Roderick said.

    Those16 EMTs and paramedics would mean there could be a crew of four in the station 24 hours a day. That is the theoretical staffing level now during the summer, when “summer standby” crews and the LCAA are fully staffed. But the part-time and per-diem jobs offered by Provincetown and LCAA are not attracting enough employees, Trovato said, to keep staffing where it needs to be.

    And that is hurting emergency services. The town’s service zone plan, filed with the Mass. Office of Emergency Medical Services, calls for response times in Provincetown and Truro of nine minutes 90 percent of the time, according to Trovato.

    “We rarely meet those standards,” Trovato wrote in his report to the select board.

    For decades, Truro and Provincetown found it efficient to pay LCAA to provide a stable of medics who have other jobs but could fill shifts that provide backup coverage. But the labor pool has shifted, and on-call medics are few and far between. Now, even the smallest towns must hire full-time rescue crews because there are so few on-call backups living nearby. Paramedics are in high demand Cape-wide; this has hurt LCAA’s ability to keep a full roster, Trovato said.

    The LCAA medics have other jobs they must go to. The department cannot make them stay if someone calls in sick.

    In recent years, Truro, Provincetown, and LCAA have all been understaffed. Wellfleet and Eastham have been taking up the slack through mutual aid, Trovato said.

    The LCAA crews often use town-owned ambulances. So, while the nonprofit keeps the fees paid by insurance, the town must maintain the ambulances, the study noted.

    During budgeting discussions early in 2022, Trovato asked Town Manager Alex Morse to increase his budget so he could hire four new medics, but the request was turned down pending the results of consultant Impey’s work.

    “The board is motivated to support the fire dept.,” said the select board’s John Golden on April 25.

    “There is nothing I would not do to make this fire dept. whole and happy,” added board member Bobby Anthony, “because if it’s whole and happy that means the town of Provincetown is well protected.”

    The study recommended phasing out LCAA in two years. In the meantime, the fire dept. has applied for a federal Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant. If the town gets it — awards are announced in the fall — the feds would pay for all 16 new staffers for three years, totaling $4 million, Roderick said.

    After that, though, the town would have to pay the medics — that is, if they can be found. Trovato said he has eight people working part-time as “summer standby,” or who are just on call. If he can offer them full-time work, that would stop them from taking a job at another department.

    Trovato would like to keep an on-call crew of firefighters even as he scales up to a salaried medical service. This is because isolated and densely packed Provincetown needs bodies fast in a fire. The current number of call firefighters is 45, he said.

    Another study presented on April 25 recommended that Provincetown construct a fire substation for $18.9 million. While Trovato liked the idea, the select board did not comment. Morse said staffing and a new substation would be considered together in future planning.

    TOWN MEETING PREVIEW

    Truro Pulls Firefighter Override off Warrant

    Provincetown fire chief says he’ll stick with Lower Cape Ambulance

    By

    TRURO — Town meeting may feel more like recess this year, as voters gather outdoors at the Truro Central School ballfield at noon on Saturday, Sept. 26.

    Even the warrant has been child-sized, now that the planning board has withdrawn 11 articles that would have gone before voters in April had the coronavirus not delayed spring town meetings and pushed them outdoors. The planning board held back on articles it had worked hard on in order “to minimize the amount of time we’re exposed to each other and the elements,” said Town Manager Rae Ann Palmer.

    The select board also agreed on Tuesday to withdraw from the warrant an article on the hiring of four new firefighter-paramedics, which would have increased the size of the fire dept. by 50 percent, from 8 to 12 members. This would have cost taxpayers $351,904, adding $75.89 to the first-year tax bill on a home valued at $500,000, said Fire Chief Timothy Collins.

    The same request, which involved a Proposition 2½ override, failed to get a majority at the town election in the spring by a vote of 209 to 257. But officials wanted it to go before voters again. If the proposal had been approved at town meeting, they would have scheduled yet another town election for the next hurdle.

    Palmer said more paramedics are important, due to the domino effect that will result if Provincetown Fire Chief Mike Trovato is successful in parting ways with the Lower Cape Ambulance Association (LCA). That nonprofit provides ambulance services to both Provincetown and Truro, and the combined support of both towns is necessary to keep LCA afloat. If Provincetown withdraws, Truro would need to take on much more of the cost of the ambulance service.

    Trovato, who has refused for months to talk about his reasons for wishing to break away from LCA after 83 years, on Monday told the Independent he has “given up on trying to create a Provincetown emergency medical service” and will stick with LCA. Trovato said he still thinks his idea is the right move, but he realizes he does not have support from town hall.

    After hearing this news, the Truro Select Board Tuesday agreed to remove the firefighter article from the warrant.

    “I think it would be best to not put it on the override and wait until the dust settles in Provincetown,” said board member Jan Worthington. “We just need to be clear with the public, because it’s been such a screwed-up process.”

    Chair Robert Weinstein agreed.

    “I think it’s important for people to understand why we are removing this and the difficulties we have in dealing with — hopefully, it’s not impolite to say — erratic behavior coming from Provincetown,” Weinstein said.

    Articles that will likely still generate interest include a petition to make the planning board an appointed rather than elected body.

    Only six of 15 Cape Cod towns have elected planning boards, said Robert Panessiti, chair of the Truro Charter Review Committee. Many argue that planning board positions are rarely contested, so whoever signs up, even as a write-in, gets on the board without any real oversight, which the select board would have if it appointed the members. But the charter committee, which was reviewing this change, did not make a recommendation on this article. And the select board voted 2 to 3 against it, with Weinstein and Kristen Reed in favor.

    NCO club
    The Payomet Performing Arts Center wants to renovate “T-5,” known as the “NCO Club,” the old clubhouse at the North Truro Air Force Base. (Photo Kevin Rice)

    Among the community preservation articles is a proposed $168,000 grant to the Payomet Performing Arts Center to help the nonprofit enter into a lease with the Cape Cod National Seashore to renovate the old clubhouse at the abandoned North Truro Air Force Base and use it as a performance space.

    If successful, it would be the first time since the Air Force abandoned the base that anyone had been able to renovate and lease one of the existing buildings, said Kevin Rice, artistic director of Payomet.

    Payomet has a tent there, and the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill built a kiln on the base. But there are dozens of abandoned buildings that are slowly falling apart.

    The clubhouse is a 3,000-square-foot building used from 1951 to 1984 by enlisted officers and the community as a bar and gathering spot.

    “It was really the hub of a lot of socializing, and a lot of marriages resulted from it,” Rice said. “We are working on an agreement with the park service — a philanthropic partnership.”

    CURRENTS

    Fire Cause: Woodstove, Electrical, or Portable Heater

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The state fire marshal and Provincetown Fire Chief Michael Trovato have determined the cause of the Nov. 21 fire that killed John Eder was accidental.

    Provincetown fire
    The fire at 86 Atkins Mayo Road marred a bright blue November sky. (Photo Jamie Demetriou)

    According to an announcement from state Fire Marshal Peter Ostroskey’s office, the fire had three possible causes: an electrical failure, a woodstove fire, or a portable heater malfunction.

    Eder, 74, was found by firefighters in his bed at 86 Atkins Mayo Road, Trovato said. The home was located in a remote section of town and was a challenge to fight because the nearest hydrant was 1,200 feet away, the announcement stated.

    “On behalf of all the Provincetown firefighters, I offer our condolences to the family,” said Trovato in a prepared statement. “This is a sad end to a long life.” 

    The Provincetown Fire Dept., the Provincetown Police Dept., and state police assigned to both the fire marshal and the Cape and Islands district attorney’s office jointly investigated the fire. —K.C. Myers

    SPECIAL TOWN MEETING

    New Station or Housing? The VFW Parcel’s Long, Winding Road

    Six years of town meeting votes led to the current moment

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The 1.3-acre parcel of town-owned land that was the former VFW post is once again the subject of debate. A petitioned article from Fire Chief Mike Trovato and 203 voters has triggered a special town meeting in the town hall auditorium at 6 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 2. The petitioners want the parcel to be reserved for a new police station, a fire and EMS substation, and an outdoor training facility for firefighters.

    VFW Provincetown
    The old VFW building. At this point, “speed bumps” is an understatement. (Photo Paul Benson)

    But an April 2018 town meeting authorized development of the parcel for affordable housing. The clash of these two priorities — police station vs. housing — is something town officials had worked for years to avoid.

    The Independent talked to more than a dozen people and reviewed footage of several meetings to better understand the votes and decisions that led to this juncture. The central episodes are in 2013, when the parcel was purchased; 2015, when the adjacent Winslow Farms parcel was not purchased; 2017, when the select board (split 3-2) and town meeting (206-35) voted to locate the police station across the street from the VFW parcel at 16 Jerome Smith Road; and 2019, when the price of that project rose from $8.6 million to $12.5 million, and the allocation of the extra money failed to win a two-thirds majority.

    2013: Town Buys VFW

    In the years after World War II, the VFW post was one of the great social hubs of the town. Everyone was a veteran, it seemed, and the building at 3 Jerome Smith Road was built entirely by the volunteer labor of post members, according to Paul Mendes, a Vietnam veteran and one of the few remaining post members.

    The post itself had been started in 1934 by Provincetown’s World War I veterans, and the town helped support it in the early years by giving it exclusive use of an old school on Montello Street, eventually selling it to the post for $1, Mendes said. The post sold that property for $20,000 in 1958 and started work on the building at 3 Jerome Smith.

    Fifty years later, membership had aged and was dwindling. Only 10 or 15 veterans came to meetings, there were problems with the septic system, and the post lost its lottery license.  Receipts were not covering expenses. The post made the difficult decision to sell the property.

    “We talked to Dan Hoort, the finance director at the time,” said Mendes. “We asked him what the value of all that early support from the town would be in today’s dollars. Hoort took out a calculator and said that $20,000 plus repairs back then would be $300,000 now. So we decided to sell the property to the town for $300,000 under market value.

    “Market value was $1.2 million,” continued Mendes. “That’s how we came to $900,000 for a purchase price. We wanted to give back that $300,000 gift.

    “We also wanted it to be for a police station,” said Mendes. “A lot of the post members were retired police officers, including myself. We knew how bad the station on Shank Painter was — it was inadequate the day it was opened. There hadn’t been a decent station in the 30 years I was an officer. We thought we could help fix that.”

    A purchase and sale agreement was signed on Oct. 10, 2013, but it said nothing about how the land would be used. An article authorizing the purchase at an Oct. 21, 2013 special town meeting said the land could be used “for general municipal purposes, including, without limitation, for police station and/or affordable housing purposes.”

    Barbara Rushmore offered an amendment on the floor of that meeting that stripped out the words “police station and/or.” The amendment passed, 113 to 84. “Legally, that amendment has no effect,” said David Gardner, the acting town manager. “A police station is a municipal purpose.”

    And indeed, the annual town reports from 2013, 2014, and 2015 make it clear that town government was hoping to build housing and a police station on the site. The VFW parcel is 1.3 acres, whereas the current police station at 26 Shank Painter Road sits on a third of an acre. The largest police station plan the Independent saw involved two-thirds of an acre. Any police station plan would still leave at least half the parcel available for some other use, and affordable housing has been among the town’s highest priorities for two decades.

    2015: Winslow Farms Passed Up

    Plans to put both housing and police at the VFW took a turn, however, when the April 2015 town meeting rejected the purchase of an adjacent lot. Buying the Winslow Farms parcel, owned by developer Jim Savko, would have connected the two parcels, providing access from the back of the VFW lot to Winslow Street.

    The vote was 173-133, short of the two-thirds majority required. Significant opposition came from neighbors, who argued that the character of the neighborhood would be disturbed.

    “Losing the egress at Winslow Street is really what ended the plans for both police and housing at VFW,” select board member Bobby Anthony told the Independent. “It’s not conducive for housing to be wrapped around the police, to have kids and families sharing the roadway with police cruisers. That egress would have let the housing be oriented to Winslow and not have to go through the police area to get in and out.

    “Also, you really need a certain size for the housing development, for a developer to even consider it,” Anthony added. The back half of the VFW lot, without Winslow Farms attached, might not be big enough. If we had Winslow Farms, the VFW would have been the police station and the housing.”

    VFW Provincetown
    The wooded lot on the left is 16 Jerome Smith Road; the VFW parcel includes the blue building on the right. (Photo: Paul Benson)

    2017: 16 Jerome Smith

    The select board appointed a building committee in 2012 to move the police station forward. After more than 50 meetings, they reported four options in January 2017: rebuild the current station site at 26 Shank Painter; purchase the property next door, Dr. Brian O’Malley’s office at 30 Shank Painter; put the police station at the VFW; or build it directly across the street from the VFW on a town-owned parcel at 16 Jerome Smith.

    O’Malley’s office would have to be purchased, said the building committee, making it more expensive than the other choices. A rebuild at the current site would require temporary quarters for the police somewhere else, which would also make it more expensive. The VFW and 16 Jerome Smith were both already owned by the town, and of those two, the committee recommended 16 Jerome Smith.

    At that meeting, building committee chair Tom Coen said “putting mixed use on [the VFW site], because of access and egress issues, the potential for conflict — we were uncomfortable with that. One of our objectives in choosing the 16 Jerome Smith site was: can we resolve the potential conflict between those two uses [police and housing] and accomplish both?”

    The select board accepted the building committee’s recommendation in a 3-2 vote. Board member Cheryl Andrews was one of the no votes, but she told the Independent that it was the O’Malley property that interested her, not the VFW parcel.

    “The wishes of the neighborhood and the wishes of the VFW post I do not think were variables for us at that time,” said Andrews. “I respect that they have an opinion, but I have to look at all the variables — size, aesthetics, appearance, traffic flow, cost, the overall fit for the town. I understood the night we bought it [in 2013] that we were free to decide how to use it.”

    2017: April Town Meeting

    Article 8.1 at the April 2017 town meeting, asking $8.6 million for a police station at 16 Jerome Smith Road, was the subject of extended debate. Not one person spoke in favor of the VFW site, however. The issues were the importance of the “greenway” at 16 Jerome Smith and the impression a police station there would make on visitors to town.

    Five voters, plus Andrews, spoke for building a station at O’Malley’s property at 30 Shank Painter. One, Barbara Rushmore, had a plan to build a station at Duarte’s, where the CVS now stands. Six voters spoke in favor of 16 Jerome Smith, as did selectmen Raphael Richter and Bobby Anthony and building committee member Rick Murray.

    No one said anything about the VFW post or proposed that it be the site of a police station. After a spirited debate, the article passed 206 to 35. The town had officially chosen to build the station at 16 Jerome Smith Road.

    The Independent asked Paul Mendes how the VFW members felt about the decision. “Having to give up the building was hard,” he said. “We were disappointed [with the Rushmore amendment in 2013], and after that, we moved on. Most of the VFW members don’t live in town anymore. A lot of them have moved to Truro.”

    Tom Coen, Rick Murray, and Paul Kelly all confirmed that no one from the VFW post reached out to the building committee or attended any meetings after 2013. “I think Paul Mendes came to one of the very first ones, to congratulate us for moving things forward,” said Murray. “But in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017? Definitely not.”

    2019: ‘Emotionally Draining’

    Andrews described 2019 as “emotionally draining” this week, an assessment doubtless shared by others. The April 2019 town meeting was forced to vote on an extra $3.9 million for the police station at 16 Jerome Smith. What had been settled was now unsettled, and disagreements about the police station’s size, cost, design, financing, and location all came alive again.

    The extra allocation needed a two-thirds vote to pass and got only 62 percent. A motion to reconsider passed, but the second vote on the article failed again, with 64 percent in favor, eight votes short of a two-thirds majority. The debate consumed more than two hours, but the only speaker to mention the VFW parcel was building committee member Paul Kelly, who briefly described the reasons the committee did not recommend that parcel for the station. Several voters spoke in favor of the O’Malley property.

    The original appropriation of $8.6 million for a station at 16 Jerome Smith still stood, Town Manager David Panagore explained at the meeting. “The $8.6 million can’t be spent at a different location without a separate vote,” he said. “It’s actually a debt authorization, not a pile of cash, and that debt authorization remains valid only for that site.”

    Coen confirmed that point last week. “At this point, we’re pretty set on 16 Jerome Smith Road,” he said. “We’re not looking at any other sites. We’ve looked at so many over the years. The truth is, there’s no perfect choice. The vote for $8.6 million and 16 Jerome Smith still stands. It hasn’t been rescinded.”

    Dec. 2, 2019: The Petition

    Dedicating the VFW parcel to a police station, as Chief Trovato’s petitioned article would do, would effectively moot the prior vote. For supporters like Paul Mendes, who signed the petition, that’s precisely the point.

    A view from the back of the 1.3-acre VFW parcel. (Photo: Paul Benson)

    “When the town purchased the VFW lot, they put the obvious immediate need of a police station behind the future need of housing,” said Mendes. “The priority of a working, comfortable police station has become secondary to the idea that housing is the number one priority.”

    Back when the building committee was entertaining multiple locations, the size and cost of a station at the VFW parcel was identical to the size and cost of a station at 16 Jerome Smith. The drawings and cost estimates are for the same facility. If it’s the same station either way, Mendes was asked, does it matter to the veterans which side of the street it’s on?

    “I’ve always been an advocate, as a neighbor and a post member, that it be a police station,” Mendes said. “I’ve been discouraged by these other options. If housing is so important, put the housing across the street at 16 Jerome Smith and put the police and fire where they belong at VFW.”

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