WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The continuity of the Williamstown Fire Department was on display Thursday morning as it hit another milestone in the construction of a new station on Main Street.

 

"We have John Notsley and Ed Briggs," Prudential Committee Chair David Moresi said at the laying of a ceremonial cornerstone for the new station.

 

"John's father attended and set the original cornerstone to the station on Water Street, our current station. And I cannot think of anything more fitting than to have John here as we set the cornerstone for the new fire station."

 

Both Notsley and Briggs, along with retired Chief Ed McGowan, laid the metaphorical cornerstone for the building project that the current Prudential Committee has overseen.

 

Those three, along with now retired Chief Craig Pedercini, did the literal groundwork: commissioning architectural studies, acquiring the parcel where the new building is being built and making the case to town residents why the current facility, built in 1950, is no longer serviceable.

 

Pedercini was elected to the five-member Prudential Committee in May, shortly after his retirement. He serves now alongside Notsley, the last remaining member of the three-person committee that set the district on the road to building a new station.

 

Notsley, Briggs, Pedercini and recently installed Chief Jeffrey Dias came together to lay the ceremonial marker, inscribed with the number 2025, at the corner of the new station, where its administrative wing meets the five-door apparatus bay.

 

"It's been a long time coming, but, in the end, the result is what we were looking for," Briggs said after the ceremony. "And I think it's important to the town to have an adequate station for the department."

 

Shortly after the ceremony, Briggs quipped to a bystander that he didn't think he would see the building project come to fruition.

 

Later, he expanded on that thought.

 

"I'm coming up on 90, so I'm lucky to be here," Briggs said. "And I'm happy to see the progress that's being made.

 

"I'm hoping to be here for the open house, the ribbon cutting and all that."

 

Moresi, after the stone was laid, said the "grand opening" of the new station probably won't come until after Jan. 1, though the department will make the move starting in December. With the energy needed to relocate the department and the crush of the holidays, it makes more sense to save the next ceremony until January at the earliest, though a date is yet to be determined, Moresi said.

 

Speaking of the energy needed to make the December move happen, Moresi was the only one to make any remarks — brief ones — during the cornerstone ceremony.

 

He was quick to transition from thoughts about the participants to a command to get the action going.

 

"With that, because we are on a timeline, we've got bricks going up today, we want to congratulate the Chief, the Prudential Committee, former Prudential Committee Briggs, and let's get that cornerstone set," Moresi said.