Warwick's Plan For Potowomut Fire Station Would Cost EG

Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian wants to get rid of the empty Potowomut elementary school building and build a fire station in its place. Completion of that plan would mean the end of the $350,000 a year Warwick pays the East Greenwich Fire District to provide fire and rescue service to the area.

Avedisian said he would ask the Warwick City Council to release $2 million in bonding authority to demolish the school – which was closed in 2008 – and build a fire station to serve the Bay Ridge and Potowomut neighborhoods, according to the Providence Journal.

Avedisian said he'd want the building to serve as an outpost for community meetings as well as a fire station since Potowomut is separated from the rest of Warwick by East Greenwich. 

For East Greenwich, the announcement serves as just another changing piece in the puzzle that is the future of the EG Fire District.

Bills now before the General Assembly would abolish the EGFD and create instead a fire department under the Town of East Greenwich. But just how the fire district will be fit within the town is still being worked out and there's also the issue of the proposed purchase of land at Cedar Avenue and Post Road for a new main fire station. A skull was found on that land during an archeological study last month. 

The Rhode Island Senate Judiciary Committee voted to send the EGFD bill to the Senate floor on Tuesday. The full House takes up their version of the bill Wednesday.