By Mark Reynolds
Last week Stephen DiLorenzo won another five year term as a Highland Fire Commissioner, with 173 votes to challenger James Balint’s 57 votes. DiLorenzo said this was the first time he had a challenger and will be entering his sixth term, starting in January.
“Each Commissioner serves a five year term and every year there is one up for a vote,” he said.
DiLorenzo said the Commissioners have been talking about some projects for station 1 and station 2; “the blacktop needs some resurfacing, and the biggest thing is station 2 has no handicap bathrooms. We want to put an addition on the north side of the building for the bathrooms. We’ve already spoken to State Senator Michele Hinchey’s office and there might be some funds available to possibly offset some of the costs.”
DiLorenzo said the alarm system at station 1 has to be updated and some IT upgrades are needed.
DiLorenzo said within three years he expects they will replace their 19 year old Rescue vehicle, which he expects will cost $1million.
“When I first got into this business we heard about a $1million fire truck in Queensbury, NY, which was the most unbelievable thing we ever heard. They had to have one high enough to reach in their amusement park,” he said. “Our truck was about $700,000 and there are pumpers recently delivered in our area that are upwards of $900,000. It’s amazing.”
On the runup to last week’s vote, DiLorenzo thanked all who turned out to support him. He took a moment to say that Jim Balint has been a friend, is the President of the Hose Company and said he felt no animosity between them during the race.
“I think we were a pretty close department and I always felt that way. It was not a personal thing against me, but he just wanted to be a Commissioner and he wanted to give it a shot,” DiLorenzo said.
DiLorenzo expects this will be his last term as Commissioner, and will have served in the position for 30 years when it concludes.