Voters Back New Fire Stations

Artist’s rendering of the planned Sanford Fire & EMS Headquarters station.

By Zendelle Bouchard and Lee Burnett

The city of Sanford will construct two new fire stations after 51.9% of voters approved the $42.5 million bond to fund their construction. Approval of the projects now enables city officials to apply for state and federal grant funding to reduce the ultimate cost to taxpayers.

“It was a narrow victory, pretty much what I expected. Nevertheless, I was very pleased,” City Manager Steven Buck said. “Not building is really not an option.” He identified the impact of carcinogens and OSHA regulations as the biggest factors in the favorable vote. “We’re not able to properly renovate pre-existing facilities to even remotely close [to requirements],” he said.

Fire Chief Scott Susi said he is “very humbled” by the community support and proud of the “incredible team effort” over the past 18 months.

The next step will be the City Council’s consideration of appropriating $1.1 million to complete design work. If design, permitting and bid preparation proceeds smoothly, Buck hopes to advertise for construction companies in September 2025, with groundbreaking on the Sanford headquarters station in October. Once construction starts, the process for the Springvale district station would begin. The city has been planning to stagger the projects to minimize disruption to services.

The first impact on property tax bills would be September 2025, Buck said. The size of the impact is still to be determined because the city will seek grant funding from Congressionally directed earmarks, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and adjustments to the state law on Tax Increment Financing to offset the burden on local taxpayers.

Although strong opinions on both sides were evident in the run-up to the election, almost a quarter of the ballots cast were blank on this question.

Approximately 67% of Sanford’s 16,602 registered voters cast a ballot in Tuesday’s election.

For more information on the fire station projects, visit this page.

Ballot Questions

On the statewide ballot questions, Sanford voters mostly aligned with state results, with one exception.

• Question 1, to limit political action committee donations to $5,000, was strongly approved by Sanford and Springvale voters, with 70.7% in favor. It passed with 74% of the vote in the state overall.
• The $25 million research and development bond in Question 2 also passed, with 51.3% approval from voters in our city (55% across the state).
• On Question 3, a majority of Sanford voters bucked the state trend and opposed the $10 million bond for historic building preservation by a narrow margin. On the whole, Maine voters supported the measure, with 51.4% in favor.
• The $30 million bond for trails in Question 4 was approved by Sanford voters. It passed statewide with 55.6% approval.
• On Question 5, to change the state flag to one more closely resembling the original design, 55.4% of Sanford voters agreed with the rest of the state in opting to keep the current flag, which features the state seal; 55.2% of Maine voters agreed.