Fairfield to hold public forums on proposed fire station

FAIRFIELD — Fairfield residents will go to the polls on March 1 to decide on whether to bond for a new fire station in town.

The referendum asks if voters want to support bonding for up to $5 million to build a new fire station at the corner of West Briggs Avenue and North Fourth Street, about two blocks west of the current fire station on North Second Street.

To help answer questions from the public about the referendum, the city of Fairfield has planned two open houses in February. City officials will give a presentation on why they believe a new fire station is necessary, and invite members of the public to ask questions and review the designs for the new fire station.

The first open house will be at 5:15 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 7 and the second will be at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 17. Fairfield City Engineer Melanie Carlson said the city chose different times on different days of the week to accommodate the most people possible.

City officials have already held three private meetings with local organizations to explain the referendum, having met with the Fairfield Lions Club, Jefferson County Farm Bureau and Fairfield Kiwanis, with a fourth meeting planned for Friday, Jan. 21 with Fairfield Rotary. Carlson said the response to the city’s proposal has been positive thus far, and its presentations have focused on giving residents background information about the fire department.

“With me not having a fire background, I’ve learned a lot through this process, too,” Carlson said. “For example, I’ve learned about all the things firemen are exposed to such as carcinogens that the layman doesn’t think about.”

Health of firefighters

Fairfield Fire Chief Scott Vaughan said firefighters are developing cancer at an alarming rate because of the toxic materials they are exposed to at fires.

“It’s not just on our clothes, but even on our skin,” Vaughan said. “When we get back from a fire, we track that through the fire station.”

The current fire station building is 12,000 square feet, but 3,000 of those square feet belong to the Jefferson County Public Health Department, which occupies the northern part of the building. Vaughan said the fire station is not big enough, and that the proposed fire station would have safety features so the firefighters do not track those dangerous chemicals through the station after returning from a fire.

“The new station will have an airlock system to separate the bay area from the living quarters and meeting rooms,” Vaughan said, adding that it will have a commercial-grade washing machine to clean their clothing.

Under the fire station’s current configuration, the sleeping quarters lead directly to the bay where the trucks are, with only one exit and no window.

“If something happens in that bay area, like a fire, there is no secondary form of egress,” Vaughan said. “The firefighters would be trapped in that room.”

Vaughan said that problem would be solved in the new fire station, where the bay would be separated from the dorm and classroom and have an air filtration system to keep fresh air in those rooms.

More space

Another reason the city wants a new fire station is to accommodate the fire department’s equipment. The proposed fire station would be 19,000 square feet, more than twice the space the department is using now. The department has nine vehicles plus an educational trailer, but it can’t store them all at the fire station. In fact, it has to spread those vehicles out across four locations in town. Those vehicles include a boat for water rescues, equipment for grain bin rescues, and a side-by-side for field fires.

Fairfield City Administrator Aaron Kooiker said having that equipment at four locations means it takes the department longer to respond to emergencies that need that equipment. The new fire station would accommodate all nine vehicles, plus contain two extra bays for vehicles the department may acquire later. Not only that, but nine of its bays would be pull-through, meaning there are doors at both ends of the building so a driver can go forward into and out of the building without having to go in reverse. Carlson said the city’s insurance company strongly recommends pull-through doors.

Kooiker said the new fire station will include a storm-rated command center, which would be a base of operations to coordinate emergency response in the event of a major storm or tornado.

Apart from the new fire station, a three-story training tower would be built on the property to allow the firefighters to practice search and rescue operations, including confined-space rescues.

Why new location?

A committee of Fairfield residents was tasked with studying potential locations in town to host a new fire station. The Fairfield Fire Station Task Force, and the city’s architectural firm Klingner & Associates, recommended building the station at the intersection of West Briggs Avenue and North Fourth Street, on property the city purchased from the Iowa Department of Transportation in 2020.

Kooiker said the DOT site was chosen because it has more land to work with, and it would be cost prohibitive to try to renovate the current fire station to comply with modern building codes, which require fire stations to withstand stronger storms than other buildings.

The city looked into other locations in town for the fire station, but those sites were too far away from the center of town, and too far from the North Second Street railroad underpass which the department needs to access the northern part of town.

If the referendum is approved, the city plans to demolish the two DOT buildings on the site now. While demolition is underway, the architect will start the final designs, with a plan to bid the project in early 2023, and for construction to begin in April or May of 2023. Construction is expected to last one to 1.5 years, with the department moving into its new location in mid-2024.

Effect on taxpayers

The city will not need to raise taxes on residents to fund the project because it will begin paying for the fire station just as old debt is going off the city’s books, so the city’s property tax rate will remain constant. The city is asking to bond up to $5 million from taxpayers, and will supplement that money with $1 million in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan.

Residents should be aware that only registered voters who live in the city of Fairfield will be able to vote on the referendum. Carlson and Kooiker said this question has come up at a few of their meetings with local organizations. Though people who live just outside the city rely on the Fairfield Fire Department as their main fire department, they will not get to vote on the referendum. Carlson said the city is following state law, and that it does not have discretion to allow non-city residents to vote on the matter.

The city explained in a Facebook post that the only mechanism for paying for capital improvements is with general obligation bonds or local option sales taxes, and since these two sources of income are from city businesses and properties, only city residents can vote in the referendum.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com