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March 9, 2011 in City
Mobile home will help fire department serve West Plains
This building was purchased by Spokane Fire and sits behind Station #8 near Spokane Community College.
(Full-size photo)
Spokane’s first fire station on the West Plains won’t be the usual classy brick structure typical of the city’s other 14 stations.
It will be a double-wide mobile home.
On Jan. 1, 10 square miles of county land between Spokane and Airway Heights will enter Spokane city limits, leaving the city less than 10 months to build a new full-time station and hire 12 new firefighters.
City officials are working with the Spokane International Airport to lease land on the northeast corner of South Spotted Road and Tech Park Drive where they can build a bay for two trucks and attach a 1996 mobile home it recently bought from the Spokane Valley Fire Department for $10,000.
“We know we need to serve the West Plains, and we know we also need to serve the Hangman Valley with all the new developments there,” said Spokane Mayor Mary Verner. “So the portable fire station unit is an ideal one for us to have purchased because it gives us some flexibility.”
The city expects to collect about $3.5 million a year in tax revenue from the annexation – the largest expansion of Spokane borders in more than a century. About $1.2 million of that will be used for fire service.
Most of the land currently is served by Spokane County Fire District No. 10. Under an agreement approved in 1999, Spokane will pay the district an amount equal to the property taxes the district currently receives from the land, even though the district no longer will be the primary responder. The city could have requested that the district continue to serve the area, but opted to provide the level of service itself.
Fire Chief Bobby Williams said the city estimates that the new station will respond to between 400 and 500 calls a year. Like most of Spokane’s fire stations, the new location will have a three-person crew 24 hours a day.
Williams said he expects fire service to improve in the annexation area. Fire District 10 has seven paid staff and 72 volunteers to serve about 100 square miles. The city will have a dozen full-time firefighters assigned to the new station, which will serve about 10 square miles. The city’s crew also has more medical training than the district’s crews.
The new station will be within four miles of five other fire stations: three Fire District 10 stations and one each run by the Airway Heights Fire Department and Spokane International Airport. One wrinkle is that the annexation separates the southeast portion of the fire district from the main district, and some firefighters have argued that some departments should consolidate.
Fire administrators say consolidation is complicated by labor, taxation and other issues.
“Economically it may make sense, but politically, it may not,” said Spokane International Airport Fire Chief Bruce Millsap.
District 10 Chief Nick Scharff said he doesn’t consider the stations that exist today a duplication of efforts.
“Every entity has the responsibility to their citizens as it exists today,” Scharff said.
Millsap said the city and airport considered consolidation but decided that it wouldn’t make sense to combine forces, at least not in the short term.
“Because of the special nature of the work we do, there’s not a lot of flexibility,” he said.
Airport fire crews follow Federal Aviation Authority rules that don’t give them the ability to divert resources as easily, he said.
Williams said the city has offered to serve the severed southeast portion of Fire District 10 in exchange for the tax revenue the land generates.
Scharff said the district hasn’t received a written offer from Spokane to serve the severed land. “Our preference would be that we wouldn’t have an island to serve,” he said.
Verner said once the new station is running, the city will study where a permanent station should go.
“It’s certainly not a long-term fix, but neither is the location necessarily the long-term location.”
MAC faces angry crowd 
Smokie on March 09 at 7:06 a.m.
A couple of things missing from this story:
1. Almost all the stations that surround the proposed new doublewide station, are just that - stations. Most of these don’t have any guarantee that there are any personnel in them. When you are bleeding out from a car wreck, it may take a little while to muster the volunteers, as opposed to having staff on duty 24/7. Likewise, house and business fires.
2. 12 firefighters at the doublewide? Seems a bit crowded don’t you think? That’s because, I imagine, there will be 3 firefighters on duty. There are 4 shifts.
3. The city could have just asked District 10 to cover the area? Not so. If you pay your city taxes, you will get the same 24/7 protection the city provides to all other parts of the city.
So, all in all, a few omissions that don’t support the overall thrust and theme of the narrative. As usual, this is the kind of “journalism” we have come to expect.
DickAdams on March 09 at 7:58 a.m.
This proves VERNER`S, attempted blackmail plot, by warning the citizens of Spokane she will be forced to lay off fire fighters was bogus. It was merely a lie laying the ground work for another ballot issue asking for more money. IMHO. I continue to wonder who pulls Verner`s strings? Some things she`s talked about, makes me think the SR owners might be involved when Verner talks about the Spokane River shore line and reminds me of the largest owner with over 20 miles of it.
Smokie on March 09 at 9:40 a.m.
Oooo boy. Dick, Dick, Dick…
Read the article. Firefighters are being hired to staff a new station in a new area of town. This area of town will bring in millions of dollars of revenue for the city, after paying for the new firefighters which you have to hire because….
If you lived in the city, you may not appreciate the city closing a station near you to staff a station in a new area of town. But, you, like most who comment on Mary Verner, the city council, parking meters, bikes, blah, blah, blah don’t live in the city.
I don’t comment on your cemetery commissioner races, your meth labs, and your tar paper shack, please don’t comment on my city anymore.
DickAdams on March 09 at 10:00 a.m.
Smokie, you say “my” city. I never understand the, I, me, my, types of persons. You show your ignorance by inferring (more than inferring,read your post) I don`t live in the city. I do. Because of the rubbish you have posted about where I live, the rest of your post I`ll consider manure. Have a nice day. Your moniker sounds to me as though you may be a fire fighter, but I will not, like you, write something I don`t know as a fact. LOL
DickAdams on March 09 at 3:32 p.m.
For everybody that posted. Ask about what happened when the city of Spokane annexed the Caulkins addition. City Hall was ravening about how much the city tax revenue would increase due to the annexation. Guess, what. A couple of things. In the first week or two, there was a fire there and another district had to respond. I guess the crystal ball, city hall was using was clouded and the city needed help to extinguish the fire . The anticipated tax revenue that the prognosticators bragged about was also wrong and come to find out the city was lucky if they broke even financially. It helped with the population count. The brain trust at city hall however, could use the added number of people so we could beat out Tacoma and stay the second largest in the state. That`s nice.
Manito_Mary on March 09 at 5:27 p.m.
I am happy that a reasonable amount of money is being spent on this fire station. Now if our leaders would only spend a reasonable amount of money on city worker wages and benefits.
Our society faces a looming crisis with future pay raises and pension benefits that we just cannot afford. This $10k fire station is proof that better solutions can be instituted. Now let’s use the same out side the box thinking about providing service that has value. I don’t expect the boys in blue to be very busy protecting the empty fields that exist out by the airport.
So, why staff it with 24-7 firefighters that get paid to sleep? Why not go to the private sector and see what they can do for a fraction of the cost. Why can’t the folks inside fire stations do something other than emergency work when there are no emergencies? You are off to a good start but I hate to think where this will help Spokane in the future.
I agree with Smokie that the article missed several important points.
Like what will be the total labor and benefit cost of this new station?
Will they be allowed to drive their fire truck to the store to get groceries? Or, when they aren’t protecting the ground squirrels will they be driving those expensive trucks to minor emergencies?
We should be suspecious of Mayor Verner who was endorsed by the Spokane Fire Department union. I would like to see our leaders take a progressive stand against outdated bargaining laws that limit our ability to fix what is wrong in Spokane.
DickAdams on March 09 at 8:51 p.m.
smokie, smokie, mirrors.
I expected a response regarding the Caulkins addition annexation pointing your finger. I thought for sure if you didn`t, you may be redundant and tell us about all the revenue to be generated by the West Plains. I hope city hall is more accurate about the WP than Caulkins re the millions of dollars of expected tax revenue . If I were you, believing the manure put out by Verner, I`d put a tooth under my pillow tonight.