Bainbridge fire commissioners continue study of new facilities

Published 11:42 am Friday, October 31, 2014

Bainbridge fire commissioners got a detailed room-by-room look of what their new fire stations may look like now that the city of Bainbridge Island has backed out of building a combined police-fire facility.

At a special meeting Monday with Rich Mitchell, from Mackenzie, the consultant firm hired to assess new and upgraded fire halls for the department, commissioners scrutinized costs and configurations for a new south end fire station and a new headquarters building on Madison Avenue.

From the size of staff offices, to apparatus bays to workout spaces and bunk rooms, the fire board looked at schematics for Station 22 and Station 21 and delved into the details of how and why.

But the biggest questions remain unanswered. Should the fire department move forward and ask voters to approve a bond measure in February, or ask instead for a levy increase to pay for increased staffing at Station 23, the department’s north end facility on Phelps Road? Should both measures be put on the ballot at once, or should a bond measure wait for 2017?

Mitchell told commissioners that putting off a bond measure would mean higher costs for the new buildings, potentially up to 7 or 8 percent more expensive. An earlier estimate by Mackenzie pegged the costs for a new Station 21 at $10 million; and a new Station 22 at $5.8 million.

Mitchell also reminded commissioners of a recent poll that found Bainbridge residents overwhelmingly supported the fire department’s proposal for a $17 million bond measure to pay for new facilities. Approximately 73 percent of those polled in the June survey favored the bond measure.

It was an enviable number, Mitchell said, and a measure of support unseen by the consultant firm’s other clients.

“In all the areas we deal with, we haven’t seen anything this strong,” he said. “This is a very supportive community.”

“There are jurisdictions that would kill to have those numbers,” Mitchell told the fire board.

Commissioner YongSuk Cho noted that sending a bond measure to voters would save taxpayers money if the needed facilities were built sooner rather than later.

But he also said his priority was staffing in the department.

Mitchell, who lives on Bainbridge, said the department could put both a levy and a bond measure on the same ballot.

Splitting them up, he said, would seem like a “one-two” hit to voters’ wallets.

“You’re getting it all honestly up front,” he said. “These are the people we need, these are the facilities we need.”

Fire officials have previously considered both a levy to pay for increased staffing at Station 23, the department’s north end station, and a bond measure for new facilities.

The previous fire board had planned to ask voters for a levy in 2014 that would have kept Station 23 open for 50 percent of the time, with an ultimate goal of keeping the station open all of the time, but that plan was shelved after a near complete changeover of the board prompted by last November’s election. Commissioners decided earlier this year to abandon an idea to put a levy increase on the November ballot, and instead began focusing on a facilities bond for the February ballot.

North end residents, however, have been pressing the board in recent months to ramp up staffing at Station 23, the only fire hall on Bainbridge that isn’t manned around the clock.

That lobbying continued at this week’s special meeting.

Gina Batali said she had talked to many other north end residents who had no idea their neighborhood fire station wasn’t fully staffed.

Residents rely on the fire department for emergency medical service, she said.

“You’re our hospital,” she said.

What good are facilities, Batali asked, if they sit empty. She encouraged the board to focus on staffing Station 23 rather than facilities.

“The front line is what matters. It’s those people that matter most,”she said.