Chicopee finance committee approves engineering funds after concrete spall found under fire apparatus bays

The Chicopee Finance Committee approved funding on April 8 to pay for immediate removal of a spalled section of concrete beneath two apparatus bays at the city’s Fire Headquarters and to finance engineering and cost-estimating for possible long-term repairs.

The request before the committee sought an appropriation from available undesignated fund balance (free cash) to cover the engineering work and the removal of the loose concrete, which the city’s fire chief and a consulting engineer said posed a safety risk. “There is a safety concern that 1 section of the concrete has spalled,” Fire Chief Daniel Stamborski wrote in a letter read at the meeting. The chief asked the committee to “approve the funds to have an engineering firm create specs so we can send it out to bid for proper repair.”

In a separate letter read into the record, Mark Lauringer, senior associate with Gale and Associates of Glastonbury, Connecticut, wrote that “the…