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RC Area Fire Authority seeks longer tax to build new fire hall

ROGERS CITY — The Rogers City Area Fire Department Authority will ask voters in March to renew its 1-mill operational millage for 16 years.

The tax would cost the owner of a $100,000 house about $50 a year.

Moltke Township Supervisor Neil Sorgenfrei said the only change from the current tax is that the authority will ask voters to pay the property tax over a period of 16 years, instead of the usual four. He said the extended timeframe is tied to the authority’s plans to construct a new fire hall adjacent to the ambulance building near 6th Street and Park Drive.

Fire Authority officials intend to take out a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and pay it back with funds generated by the millage.

Sorgenfrei said the most recent estimate to construct the new fire hall is $1.2 million, although a final estimate has yet to be received. However, he said the Fire Authority currently has $500,000 to use as a down payment for the building.

“We used to always renew it for four years, but, to satisfy the government — the USDA — for the loan, we had to have a longer extension on the time,” he said. “It’s going to be the same millage as what it always has been.”

Sorgenfrei said the authority has selected the Saginaw-based Spicer Group as the architect for the building project.

He previously told The News that Spicer Group would provide the authority with not only the design plans but also help them determine the total cost of the project.

Sorgenfrei said that, in 2011, the Fire Authority was asked by Rogers City officials to move out of their current location at Rogers City City Hall because the city needed the space. The new location will also give the Fire Authority more space to store its equipment and allow its first-responders to move their equipment to the new fire hall.

The authority relies on volunteer firefighters and serves Rogers City and Rogers, Belknap, Bismark, and Moltke townships.

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