Maple Ridge council has OK’d a bylaw that will allow it to start work on Fire Hall No. 4 by borrowing $6 million.
The Tuesday decision came despite the objections of Coun. Corisa Bell, who says the project and the money should be reviewed, after initially being approved in 2008.
“Just because something was approved five years ago, or 10 years ago, does not mean today that we should go ahead with it. Just because it’s something we’ve been waiting for, doesn’t mean it’s something we need to have right now,” Bell said Wednesday.
Maple Ridge just approved about two new fire trucks, she pointed out. And even though the new fire hall, on 112th Avenue in Albion, is part of the financial plan and fire master plan, its capital and operating costs will still affect municipal finances during tough times.
Bell said residents are telling her, what does it matter if there’s a new fire hall, if they can’t afford a house.
Mayor Ernie Daykin said the fire hall has been planned for the past decade and the bylaw only secures the funding. The building project itself still needs council approval.
The public approved the borrowing in 2008, and if a specific borrowing bylaw isn’t OK’d this year, a new referendum would be required.
“It’s been in the works for over 10 years.”
Maple Ridge will borrow the $6 million from the Municipal Finance Authority, while the payments would come out of the fire department capital acquisition reserve.
“It’s like a pre-approved mortgage,” Daykin said, and won’t affect property tax rates.
“It boils down to response time.”
Without a fire hall in the area, it could take longer for fire trucks to reach emergencies. More staff could be required for Fire Hall No. 1 to achieve desired response times.
The fire department presented an update to council earlier this year.
Daykin recently explained to a resident that property taxes pay for emergency services, which consume the largest part of the district’s budget. Those taxes are “paying for services that I hope you’ll never need.
“I hope you never have a fire and the fire department has to respond, or you get broken into … and you need our police department. I hope you never need those. But the reality is they’re a big part of the budget.
“I would far rather explain we’re investing these resources … to be ready because if we’re not ready and disaster hits, you’re sure going to be choked, because we hadn’t planned for it.”
Maple Ridge spent $30 million on fire and police in 2012, the largest expense item.
Fire Chief Peter Grootendorst told council in December that when six new firefighters are hired in the next two years, the department will have reached its master plan goal of 54 full-timers, bolstered by about 60 to 65 part-time, paid-on-call firefighters.
Grootendorst said that response times have now reached 80 per cent, meaning firefighters get to a call within seven minutes of the alarm, 80 per cent of the time.
In 2003, prior to moving to full-time/part-time force, when the department relied mainly on paid on-call firefighters, the ratio was only 30 per cent.
Fire department figures show that Maple Ridge is third lowest in the region in terms of cost per capita, ringing in at $128 versus $61 for Pitt Meadows, which has only a paid-on-call staff.
Bell acknowledges fire safety is always a worry and people’s lives are at stake.
“How many fires have we had in the Cottonwood area in the last year or two years?”
Is the new sprinkler bylaw, requiring them for all new houses, improving safety, she asked.
She wanted updated information from the fire department and wanted to know what is the risk of not building an Albion fire hall?
“Where is the data showing that this amount of money being spent at this point time is the best decision?
“None of that came with the report. We had a conversation on it on Monday and then the next night, we’re deciding on it.
“We’re just going to rubber stamp another thing and send it through.”
Bell said the fire department gives council updates, but all the information should be in a staff report.
“We didn’t even get the history of this,” she said.
“If this is so important and valuable to the district … we should inform our councillors as to what’s going on and why the decision is being made and not just give us a piece of paper that approves borrowing on behalf of taxpayers, $6 million. And we’re just supposed to say, ‘Oh, OK.’”
Responding
Will more people die in diastrous fires if Fire Hall No. 4 is not built?
Fire chief Peter Grootendorst doesn’t want to get into that exercise. You can’t quantify what happens if you don’t put in the fire hall, he said. There’s no way to make those calculations.
Grootendorst says the hall is in the fire master plan, and the arguements made when that was written in 2004 are still valid.
The overall goal for the Maple Ridge Fire Department is to respond to a fire within seven minutes of callout, 90 per cent of the time.
“If we don’t build that hall, we’ll likely never be able to achieve that standard. What will likely happen is the standard we currently have will diminish.”
Currently, firefighters get to 80 per cent of the calls within seven minutes.
Grootendorst said the hall isn’t just to serve the Albion area.
“As traffic patterns get busier and busier … and we start to get more calls out in the area that 80 per cent we have now, could get lower and lower.
“It gives more response capability for the entire district, not just that one little area.
“Things haven’t changed from when the plan was originally put together in my mind.”
The new hall will be staffed by paid, on-call firefighters rather than full-timers, increasing the pool of firefighters on duty.
The paid volunteers could come from the area, allowing quick response from the volunteers, as well.
Having a new fire hall in the area could also reduce homeowners insurance premiums.