As the Vancouver City Council unanimously approved acceptance of a $2.3 Million SAFER Grant to reopen Fire Station 6, almost exactly one year ago, council member Jack Burkman was quoted, “We’ve wounded a neighborhood and now we need a Band-Aid” as he referred to the city as using a “broken business model.”
Fire Station 6 had been closed for much of 2011 due to budgeting problems in the city.
Other city council members applauded accepting the grant while reminding all of it gives the city a “temporary fix” and two years to work out a permanent solution.
Crews were hired and trained and the station was reopened on November 7, 2011 to a jubilant neighborhood, just in time for the November 8, 2011 elections where three Vancouver City Council members were up for reelection.
The biennial budget that called for closure of Fire Station 6 was passed by a 6 to 1 vote, council member Bart Hansen being that lone dissenter and who gained the endorsement of the citizen neighborhood group formed in support of the Fire Station.
Prior to Fire Station 6 actually closing, former Vancouver City Council Member Pat Jollota, attending a candlelight vigil in support of keeping the station open was quoted, “This could have been avoided. If the council had set it as a policy, fire stations will not be closed, public safety would not be compromised, staff would have had to find a way” indicating displeasure with others on the council that “felt that the drastic cuts to other departments, like transportation and parks, that would have been necessary to keep the fire station open were not acceptable.”
With no city council members up for reelection in this year’s election, Ms. Jollota’s words ring truer than ever as we read, just 9 months after Fire Station 6 was re-staffed and re-opened, Fire Station 6 may face another closure.
Although the current grant will carry the station through the end of 2013, we read “City Manager Eric Holmes told the city council in an email Friday — the deadline to apply — that Vancouver wasn’t technically qualified for the grant, and that because it has a grant now, the department wasn’t as competitive.”
It is further revealed that in order for the city to qualify for yet another grant in order to protect the public, “The city council would have to authorize a letter of intent to lay off those 13 firefighters” recently hired and trained to man Fire Station 6, disappointing the founder of the Friends of Fire Station 6, Mary Elkin, who endorsed city council member Bart Hansen. Elkin said, “I’m a little upset that no one even told the city council this was going to happen. It didn’t give them time to ask questions.”
The main question that comes to mind is, “why are we continually relying on federal temporary grants in order to keep a fire station open?”
Vancouver, Washington is the 4th largest city in the state and we are told how it is growing, even though the county remains locked in its fourth straight year of double digit unemployment.
Reflecting back on the words spoken by Pat Jollota, I am struck to also read, shortly after the Fire Station was reopened, Vancouver approves $600K contract to build waterfront park.
More recently we read, $1 million from state paves the way for waterfront park and Vancouver gets $750K for waterfront trail development.
Yes, while sweating keeping a Fire Station open, building another park in the city takes priority, as well as taking on over $20 Million in debt for a new City Hall, creating a Bus Rapid Transit System, forcing the community to accept light rail from out of state they have declined take priority.
While city parks are great to have, we also know that we already 107 parks in the city and funds to maintain those parks have dried up, letting them fall into disrepair. How does the city intend to fund maintaining yet another one?
We were informed of that this past May as we saw Vancouver mulls tax to fund parks as this same city council decided, “Vancouver voters will be asked in November to approve a tax levy of 53 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value to create a metropolitan parks district to preserve and enhance Vancouver parks and recreation services.”
As our home values steadily decrease, renters who will not be required to pay this new tax will have the privilege of deciding whether or not those of us fortunate enough to still own a home will pay more taxes to cover parks, not public safety.
The new Waterfront Park is to be part of massive new retail and housing development project along the north bank of the Columbia River where high end retail and condominiums will be offered, promising a beautiful view looking west of Oregon’s Mt. Hood.
Left out of the promise is that there is also a massive 8-story bridge planned to be constructed between that great view of Mt. Hood and those high end condominiums, leaving Clark County taxpayers stuck with paying off upwards of $10 Billion in bond interest over the next many decades and designed to give easier access to shops, businesses an entertainment facilities south of the river, outside of our community and in Portland, Oregon.
The thousands of people who live in Clark County and must commute to Portland daily will also be facing potentially as much as $8 a day in tolls to cross the new mega-bridge, or pay a fee to ride Portland’s financially failing light rail system, instead of spending their money in Vancouver and Clark County where revenues gained could help fund that fire station facing closure.
Of course, we’ll hear how money for parks cannot be used anywhere else and if we really want our safety looked out for, why just pony up for as yet unannounced new tax I am sure will be proposed soon.
I guess the thought of seeking legislative assistance for an emergency variance of some sort to divert funds where really needed is out of the question.
Or, dropping pie in the sky plans that will bankrupt the community that will build a park they cannot maintain while closing down fire stations that must rely on temporary federal grants to keep open will also not be considered.
Also out of the question I am sure, is hoping for some of these elected leaders charged with looking out for the public good explaining just why it is that public safety must rely on “temporary band-aid fixes” and not unnecessary things like light rail and a 108th park in the city.
We need real leaders in office. People that have run a business or have had to pay bills and live within a budget.
We need representatives who can see that public safety must come before another park or pie in the sky taxpayer bankrupting projects taxpayers do not want in the first place.
