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Crime & Safety

Massapequa Fire District Renews Hydrant Lease With Aqua New York

Higher Worker's Comp rates, truck sales also covered at District Board meeting.

The main topics covered at the recent Massapequa Fire District board meeting were ones near and dear to any working man or woman's heart- bills, bills, and more bills.

One of the bigger pieces of news to come out of the meeting was the District's renewal of their fire hydrant lease with Aqua New York, Inc.

The Massapequa Fire District currently leases fire hydrants from three separate water providers: Aqua New York, the Massapequa Water District, and the South Farmingdale water district. However, the renewal of the lease with Aqua, a company known among local area residents for their high rates, was only done out of necessity, according to Hanna.

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"Unfortunately, we don't have a choice...we need those hydrants in the District," he said. "Aqua charges us $600 per hydrant, two to three times more than the Massapequa or South Farmingdale Water Districts charge."

In other news, the district is also being forced to contend with an issue also recently faced by the Massapequa School District when they were calculating their 2011/2012 school year budget- rising costs of Worker's Compensation insurance. This year sees the Fire District having to deal with an increase of over nine percent for separate coverage policies that deal with both District employees and volunteers.

Find out what's happening in Massapequawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"It's a big hit, but again, what are you going to do?" said Hanna. "It's something we need, something we have to have."

Before the meeting first got underway, Chairman Michael Hanna went through a series of sealed envelopes, opening them one-by-one. Each envelope contained bids sent to the Fire District by local residents for two older SUV service trucks that are being replaced. The board obviously went with the highest bidder in the case of each individual truck being sold.

Details identifying the trucks as property of the Fire District will be removed before the vehicles are turned over to their new owners.

The board also discussed an upcoming Fire Safety night, to be held at Massapequa High School in October.

"We hold it in the parking lot," said Hanna. "We usually hand out information about fire safety and things like that."

More details on the Fire Safety night will be released as the date draws nearer.

The next regularly-scheduled meeting of the Massapequa Fire District board is on Monday, September 12, at 8 p.m.

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