West St. Paul considers new fire hall

News

Posted By John Towns

Updated 1 month ago

West St. Paul council is currently deliberating about whether or not to secure funding to construct a new fire hall to serve the municipality.

According to CAO Brent Olynyk, the current facility, located just behind the RM's municipal office in Middlechurch, has become far too cramped for the department's growing needs.

"We've got really three bays that are jammed with vehicles, and when we want to provide additional services to the community – for example, water rescue services – we just don't have the space," explained Olynyk, adding that the current building dates back to 1956. "The guys are getting ready for the fire, and they're at risk because there's moving vehicles and no real space for them to change other than the bays themselves."

The plan to construct a new facility for around $3 million was on the table at a special meeting of West St. Paul council on Wednesday night, though no information about any decisions or discussion from the meeting was available by The Journal's press time on that evening.

When interviewed Tuesday afternoon, Olynyk speculated that the Wednesday meeting would be mostly a debate about the plan, which he says has been in the works for almost two years.

"(Wednesday's meeting) is more a debate about the fire hall. We want to know if we want to move ahead with it, how would we borrow money to fund it – would it be (borrowed out of) local improvement or would it be general borrowing?" Olynyk explained. "We're looking at the cost of debt servicing over 20 years, and other issues and programs that could come up over the next 20 years (as we pay down this debt from the fire hall)."

Among the "other programs" Olynyk references are West St. Paul's impending plans for sewer, which some estimates peg at somewhere around $15 million, though Olynyk stresses that the additional $3 million the RM would have to borrow for the fire hall would be not only well spent, but a reasonable value for the money as well.

"We've done all our homework, we've looked at other locations and we've looked at partnerships. I know the City of Winnipeg is doing three new fire halls at a cost of probably between $17 million to $20 million," said Olynyk. "So when we're talking about $3 million, we're talking about being innovative and including some things like a tower where we can train, and other municipalities in the area can train with us.

"If the firefighters are going to volunteer and put their lives at risk, we've got to give them the facilities that they need."

Depending on how council decides to vote on the funding for the new facility, their decision to secure funding may come within just a few months of a province-wide municipal election slated for October, after which an entirely new council could be elected. According to Olynyk, council may decide to hold off on borrowing for the project, letting the new council handle the project.

"Part of the decision of council may be, 'Do we want to make this decision now, or would it be proper to let the new council make this decision?'" Olynyk asked. "However, the municipality can't grind to a halt just because there's going to be an election and a potential change in council. We have been working on this for almost two years – we had a group that has been looking at our needs and possible locations and what the costs and services that we could provide would be.

"So this isn't something that's being taking lightly," he stressed. "When you're trying to attract prospective residents and you want to present West St. Paul as an attractive place to live, you have to provide the services, and that's what we're trying to do."