Executive Order  No. 40: Authorizing municipalities to contribute to cost of five mobilization district radio communications systems

WHEREAS, pursuant to the provisions of Executive Order No. 37, issued December 8, 1960, there have been established in the Commonwealth fourteen Fire Mobilization Districts, each composed of a number of cities and towns; and

WHEREAS, the establishment of such Fire Mobilization Districts was, and is, for the purpose of permitting more rapid and effective mobilization of firefighting forces during periods of emergency and, in addition, strengthening systems of voluntary mutual aid among fire departments for purposes of non-disaster fire fighting; and

WHEREAS, it is essential to the implementation of this order and to the operation of said Fire Mobilization Districts, that each of such districts be equipped with a central radio communications station for the purpose of receiving requests for assistance and dispatching assistance in compliance with such requests as well as for the purpose of transmitting orders for mobilization of fire apparatus during periods of emergency; and

WHEREAS, in many instances it has been possible to obtain such equipment by expenditure of county funds and the assessment in turn of such cost to the cities and towns in the county concerned; and

WHEREAS, in the case of Fire Mobilization District No. 13, located in Greater Boston, it is not feasible to finance the purchase of such radio equipment in such manner and it is necessary for each community to contribute to the cost thereof directly:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, John A. Volpe, Governor of the Commonwealth, acting under the provisions of Acts of 1950, Chapter 639, as amended, and, in particular, sections 4, 5, 7, 8, 11 (e), 16 and 20 thereof, and all other enabling authority, do hereby issue this order as a necessary preparatory step in advance of actual disaster and as part of the comprehensive plan and program for the civil defense of the Commonwealth.

1. Subject to appropriation, any city or town located in a fire mobilization district established pursuant to executive order of the governor heretofore or hereafter issued under the authority of chapter six hundred and thirty-nine of the acts of nineteen hundred and fifty, as amended, may contribute to the cost of establishing and maintaining (but not including personnel costs) a radio broadcasting system to aid in the fire protection of the cities and towns located in said district, in the same percentage that the number "one" bears to the total number of cities and towns in said district.
2. Any such contribution may be paid by way of advance or reimbursement to the city or town which, by agreement, is designated, pursuant to said executive order of the governor, as the city or town in which said radio broadcasting system is to be installed and operated.
3. Notwithstanding the provisions of section one of this order, no expenditure of funds by any such city or town for the purpose of this act shall be made unless prior approval of said project is first obtained from the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization.
4. The provisions of this order shall not apply to any fire mobilization district as to which a different provision relative to contributions by cities and towns therein towards the cost of Central Fire Radio equipment for such district, may have been made by act of the General Court heretofore enacted.

GIVEN at the Executive Chamber in Boston this twenty-seventh day of July, in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and sixty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the one hundred and eighty-sixth.

JOHN A. VOLPE

By His Excellency the Governor

KEVIN H. WHITE

Secretary of the Commonwealth