Here are notes provided by President Bob Webster:

I would like to welcome everyone to our Ground breaking ceremony here at The Bethany Beach Volunteer Fire Company in Bethany Beach De. My name is Bob Webster and I, as the current President of this great organization, will be representing your hosts, the Board of Directors who are as follows:

Lucas Powell - Vice President
Wayne Fuller - Treasurer
Kristin Miller - Secretary
Rick Parrett, Jr. - Fire Chief
Bill Bowden, Jr. - Chief Engineer
Brian Martin - Asst. Treasurer
Mike Suit - Asst. Secretary

At this time I would also like to acknowledge some of our distinguished guests who have taken their time to join us today

Gerald Hocker - Our State Representative
George Bunting - Our State Senator
George Cole - Our County Councilman
Vance Phillips - Our County Councilman
Richard Toulson - President SCVFA
Cliff Graviet - Our Town Manager
John Eckrich - Our Building Inspector
Del Tech Class - Dr Doug Hicks, Prof. D. Pererson
AWB Engineers - Andrew W. Booth, Layne Bynum
Richard Y. Johnson & Son Richard Johnson, George Welsh
Tony McClenny - BB Town Council
Wayne Fuller - BB Town Council
Jerry Dorfman - Planning Commission
Regina Trodden - BB Women’s Civic Club
Maureen Dzur - BB Women’s Civic Club

I would like to once again thank all of you and the rest of our guests for joining us today ask that you please stay and join us for refreshments in the West Bay of the Firehall at the completion of the Ceremony.

We are here today to break ground on a project that has been in the plans for quite some time now and I don't think it would be fair to kick off this ceremony without briefly filling all of you in on just how it was that we got to this point.

Although the idea of building a new Firehall, which has it's own interesting story, or expanding our current location, probably dates back to well before when I joined the Company some 14 years ago the actual committee charged to look into the expansion of this building was not formed until the year 2000. The Co Chairmen of that Committee Wilbert Powell and Chad Hickman started meeting with their committee and talking to members to try to conceptualize the needs of the Company in the years to come. Once they had a good Idea of the direction that the company wanted to go in they decided to team up with one of our members, Frank Sekscinski and his architectural classmates at Delaware Tech who were seeking a project for their class. The class, under direction of their instructor Dave Pederson and Dr. Doug Hick, Department Chair, which consisted of Frank, Layne Bynum, Lee Whaley, and Shawn Campbell, finished and submitted their project drawings on December 13, 2001. The Building committee then reviewed and revised those drawings and presented them to the Fire Company in the spring of 2002. By the end of the summer of 2002 the Company had selected Andrew W Booth and Associates, an Architectural and Engineering firm of which whom Mr. Lane Bynum was now employed to use these plans to design our new building. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until the design firm realized that that the project needed a few variances and we were going to have to go through the variance process with the Town to accomplish this. At this point around the end of January 2003 the architectural design was stopped so that we could proceed with getting the variances. Soon after in May we heard of the Towns proposed interest of a land swap or sale and decided to put everything on hold and pursue that.

That process involved communicating with many state and local agencies including some very important information needed from DelDot whose actual response we didn't receive until December of that year. After receiving Del Dot's response and further conversations with the town, the town decided on about May 2004 not to proceed with any more discussions in reference to a sale or swap. At that point we picked up where we left off and continued to apply for our variances and those applications were heard at a hearing on September 14, 2004 where we received the OK on 4 out of 5 variances (a decision on our communications tower is still pending.) But the good news is with the other four variances OK'd it was at that point for the first time we knew that the actual construction process was going to begin. So speeding up the process we accomplished getting bids by the end of September for our new addition. On October 27, 2004 a contract was executed with Richard Y. Johnson and Son, to build our new addition. At that point he immediately started filing for the permits necessary to accomplish that task. With gratitude to Gerald Hocker and George Bunting at the State level, George Cole at the County level, and former Mayor Joe McHugh at the Town level, the fees for a great majority of the permits thus far have been waived which brings us to this ceremony today on the 3 P1 of January to break ground and for Mr. Johnson to go ahead and do what he needs to do to reach our estimated completion date of January 6, 2006.
What you will see on this location will be a new 14927 sq. foot, two-story addition made up of masonry and steel construction. The first floor will consist of 5 engine bays across the front which will be built at 8 feet above sea level, the current flood elevation, which is 30 inches higher than our present engine bay floors. The second floor will house a membership meeting room, a boardroom, a recreation lounge, a physical equipment room and administrative offices. It will also have additional live-in member bunk rooms as well as rooms for our current membership to use in emergency situations. After fitting this project with the necessary communications equipment, electronic equipment and other additional furnishings a total cost of this project is approximately 2,000,000,000 for which we are also kicking off today our new building fund. This fund will be monies that we need to earn over and above our current operational fund drive which we send out in the district once a year. We are reaching out to the community in many ways to get assistance to help us achieve our goals so if you or anyone you know is interested in helping us out checks can be sent to our mailing address which is PO Box 950, Bethany Beach, De 19930 or by contacting our treasurer Wayne Fuller or myself at 539-7700. Already with the generosity of some in the local community we have been lucky enough to raise over $7,000 but as you can see from what I have told you we have a long way to go.

Submitted By:
Bob Webster
President - Bethany Beach Volunteer Fire Company
January 31, 2005