Council to take another look at second station

Boulder City Councilman Steve Walton has a soft spot for fire departments, especially the local one.

After all, he is a retired firefighter and is the father of one. So, during the most recent council meeting, he brought up the need to revisit the possibility of building a second station to serve Boulder City.

“I asked for this to come up because we’ve had, over the years, great and detailed discussion about the fire and emergency service capabilities within our community,” Walton said Dec. 9.

In November 2021, there was a workshop held specifically to hear about the assessment and potential risk facing the community by having just the one fire station, located on Elm Street. Another similar workshop was held about a year later. Walton said there was a question at the latter workshop of whether or not there was a “canned” standard when it comes to fire coverage. The answer, he said, was “no.”

“The beauty of doing a detailed community risk assessment is that it’s specific to your community,” he said. “What’s the topography? What are the demographics? How many nursing homes are there? How many inaccessible properties do you have because of topography? What are the response times to other areas?”

From that workshop there was another statement that because of response times, or in some case the lack thereof, it was suggested that a second station was needed. In 2022, that council set aside land at Quartzite Road and Nevada Way as a potential location. This would assist in response times, especially in medical calls. At that time, it was estimated that a new station there would carry a price tag of $1.3-$1.4 million. But when bids went out, that figure doubled and even tripled, Walton said.

“So that died on the vine as well,” he said. “So the reason I bring this item before council today, is for us to discuss if we want to direct staff to review the analysis that was done.”

If they go that route, he’d be looking for staff to tell council where the department stands in terms of emergency medical response for the community and whether a variety of improvements need to be prioritized or not.

“This is something we’ve wrestled with when it comes to staffing and that we’d need not just one-time funds but reoccurring funds if we’re increasing staffing,” he said, adding that it will take planning to do so year after year.

Walton then posed the question to his fellow councilmembers if this is something they want to pursue and direct staff to follow up and come back with current information and cost estimates.

Councilwoman Denise Ashurst said, “I literally live a stone’s throw away from the fire department. So, I’m good. But if I lived on the lake side, I would be thinking a lot differently if the response time was a lot longer.”

She added that they should “dust off” previous reports and use them when moving forward.

Councilwoman Sherri Jorgensen said no one is arguing that response times can vary greatly depending upon where a person lives within the city limits.

“We have an obligation to safety first,” she said, noting that the issue needs to be looked at through both safety and financial lenses.

Mayor Joe Hardy spoke last and said he felt everyone was on the same page.

“I look at this from a medical standpoint,” said Hardy, who is also a physician. “Most of our calls, I suspect, are regarding falls or medical things, so we use our paramedics for that.”

He went on to say that based on previous discussions, two more stations may actually be needed, one on the lake side and the other to serve the Del Prado area and others off Utah Street. He noted that the bulk cost of building a new station isn’t just the structure itself but staffing those stations as well as equipping them with fire trucks and ambulances.

“As far as debt is concerned, we can go to a vote of the people to take out debt. Good luck,” he said of a bond.

When BCFD Chief Ken Morgan was hired this summer, regarding the topic, he told the Review, “I do think we need to look seriously at a second station but there are other priorities that we can do to make the department better,” he said.

One of them is to construct a storage building, which started this week behind the station. Moving the administrative offices into a separate building is also needed, he said. He’s not sure where but if it happens, the current offices, including his, would be used as dorm rooms for additional firefighters.

A motion was made, and was approved unanimously, to request staff to update the past reports and provide a cost analysis, which will come back before council at a later date.