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Go slow no more is the new mood at the fire district

by Meg Olson

Fire commissioner David Gellatly is abandoning the cautious “one step at a time” position that has prevailed at fire district five since voters soundly defeated the previous commission’s proposal for a tax increase. He wants fellow commissioners to ask voters for money again, this time not for manpower but for buildings and equipment.

At the commission’s July 14 meeting Gellatly followed up on an email he circulated among fellow commissioners and staff. “I think we need to start preparing with strategic planning even in the absence of a full-time chief,” Gellatly said. Specifically Gellatly is proposing to ask voters to support two general obligation bonds, to be repaid by taxpayers over the next ten years.

The first would generate funds for a new or improved Benson Road fire station. “If you walk in the doors of the bay you’re hard pressed to turn around,” he said. “We’ve got grants and applications in to purchase apparatus and we have nowhere to put it. ” Today, he said, apparatus is poorly stored in two fire stations, one on Gulf Road and one on Benson Road. “It’s cumbersome and the apparatus at station 2 is seldom activated, and the result is a degree of neglect,” he wrote in his July 10 email. His proposal would be to expand or replace the current Benson Road facility, and he said the commission should look to the bingo operation, the clinic, volunteers, staff and the community to see what kind of facility would best suit all their needs. “One of the most important things short of the volunteers themselves is offering them a decent physical plant to operate out of,” Gellatly said.

Land for the expansion would be an acre of land west of the station leased from the water district, and Gellatly said perhaps they could negotiate the exchange of that land for the old fire station on Gulf Road, which that water district had previously been negotiating to buy.

The district could also look at expanding into the existing bingo hall, depending on how that operation sees its future needs. “I’m not one for kicking bingo out after what they’ve done for the fire department and the community,” Gellatly said. If the plan to float two more GO bonds is approved by voters, Gellatly pointed out, it would only be the second time a bond was needed for fire district buildings and equipment. The Benson Road fire station was paid for through bingo revenues, as were the ambulance, the older fire engine and the quick response vehicle.
In the new fire station Gellatly would like to see a new fire engine or two, and a new ambulance. “It’s getting tired,” Gellatly said of the fire engine purchased in 1991 through a voter approved bond, which would be sold if the department opted to buy two engines. He also said the ambulance, which was paid for by fireman’s bingo, “needs to be moved to a second line position” and a replacement purchased. Gellatly speculated a new engine would cost $200,000 and a new ambulance would be $75,000 or more.

The cost of a new or improved fire station would depend on what design was agreed upon. “How much we spend depends on how much support we can garner for it,” he said.

The new Blaine fire station, which has five bays as would be required at district five to house all the equipment if Gellatly’s proposal goes through, cost over $1.2 million excluding the cost of the land. The facility also includes sleeping quarters for four, administrative offices and training rooms. It does not, however, accommodate any community facilities akin to the clinic and bingo hall now housed in the Benson Road fire station.

“These are capital items and don’t enter the realm of operations,” Gellatly said. “Operations need to be looked at in more detail when a full-time chief is on board.”

Gellatly said their first step should be to review existing strategic planning documents, inventory equipment and physical plant, and put it all together into an updated planning document. “I don’t think we need to reinvent the wheel,” he said. “These are both good planning documents with good information.”

The 1997 strategic plan, prepared by Gellatly then as volunteer chief, recommends building a new fire station costing approximately $1 million. It did not recommend replacing apparatus at that time, but predicts new apparatus will be needed in a decade.

Another strategic plan prepared by former fire chief Mike Campbell also recommends an updated single location for fire department operations. It was to implement that plan, which also called for adding more paid staff to the department, that previous commissioners proposed more than doubling the tax levy, meeting with overwhelming voter disapproval in November 2003.

Commissioner Susan Brownrigg said the district would need to fight hard to win back voters. “You’ve got a public still stinging from last year,” she said. “Their backs are up already.” Gellatly agreed and added that the current board should limit themselves to planning and getting input from interested parties. “We don’t really have very much of a mandate to change everything,” he pointed out. “Two of us were appointed. We’ve been asked to take care of business.” All three commissioners are up for election in November.