Orleans Fire Rescue Committee Votes to Interview Three OPM Finalists

ORLEANS — August 18, 2025 — Orleans fire rescue committee narrows OPM field to three firms, schedules interviews for late August or early September. The Fire Rescue Building Committee voted unanimously at its August 18 meeting to interview the top three scoring applicants for Owner's Project Manager services on the proposed new fire rescue station, rejecting a suggestion to include a fourth firm after members raised concerns that the fourth-ranked applicant, Colliers International, had proposed a project director, project manager, and on-site representative none of whom had fire station experience. Committee member Rick Waldo drove the argument: "Do we want the three people at the top of this org chart to have no experience building anything like this?" The interviews, to be held in a single evening, will follow a format of a 15-minute presentation and 30-minute question-and-answer session, with all candidates ranked by members after a group debrief. August 25 is the preferred date; September 8 is the fallback. The committee also finalized eight interview questions covering dispute resolution, budget and schedule communication, value engineering, site selection experience, operational facilities during construction, and public consensus-building, with specific committee members assigned to each question.