LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — Options for a new public safety facility are not far from the Select Board's hands.

"The [Public Safety Building Committee] is in the final throws of turning it back over to the Select Board," Chair Mark Siegars said on Monday.

Members have agreed on three alternating designs: one for just a police station that is a redesign of a nearly decade-old proposal, one for a combined police and emergency medical services station, and a standalone EMS facility with room for expansion.

"All these will be laid out on the Skyline property and so that you could have the single building, the combined building, or two separate buildings," Siegars explained.

At last year's annual town meeting, voters shot down a nearly $6 million proposal for a combined police and EMS facility. A new committee was established to bring forward a plan that resonates with the town.

The Fire Department was originally included among the three options but that was scrapped in the spring when the cost estimate was much more than the town could stomach. Architect Brian Humes had worked with the Fire Department on a needs assessment and it was determined that the department would require a building of more than 19,000 square feet, costing around $20 million alone.

"There is a community service that's paid for by the government where technical assistance can come into communities and talk to the community about financing through the [U.S. Department of Agriculture]. They finally responded back to the committee," Siegars said.

"We've had some discussion about whether trying to have a meeting with the Select Board, the committee, having a general community presentation, so that people really understand what the process is. Not necessarily what the money is but what the process is because that's really a big issue, is making sure that people understand what the process is."

The committee should have all of the designs and cost estimates in September and be able to finalize a report. A key component of that will be recommendations about the next steps.

"I don't think the committee is going to come out and say, 'This is what we want,'" the chair said.

"There's going to be a like a smorgasbord, you can test the fruit and the cheese or just eat bagels if you want to, but I think that there will be a next step, and at least those decisions will have been finalized."

Siegars pointed out that this is all based on a survey where community members expressed an interest in seeing options for just a police station, a combined police and emergency medical services complex, and a complete facility with police, EMS, and the Fire Department.

"I'll just remind the board that we actually did spend some money with Brian Humes and the estimate for a fire station was $27 million so we just cut that out of the discussion completely because that was outside the scope of what we could do," he added.

Siegars reminded the board that the longer this is put off, the more expensive it becomes.

"This just is not going to go away and we would really encourage, whenever we have our next meeting, that people really need to either tune in or come into the meeting and look at what the three options are," he said.

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