FORT MADISON – Local voters gave a very big green light to the city of Fort Madison to move forward with building a new fire station Tuesday night.
Fort Madison voters overwhelmingly approved a $12 million bonding authority for the city to construct a new fire station on property where the city’s public works facilities are located in the 2000 block of Avenue L.
Voters approved that referendum 2,817-1,180 or about 70%.
Fort Madison City Manager Laura Liegois said with her relatively short time in the community, she wasn’t sure how the measure would end up.
“I will be honest. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. I can say that there’s not been a negative thing said to me about the fire department or its services, so I knew there was support, but 70% is a wonderful feeling knowing we have that level of support,” she said.
The measure authorizes the city to bond for up to $12 million and Liegois said last estimates on the cost of that construction were about $12 million. However, she said the authorization opens doors for other funding opportunities including grants, and the city shouldn’t have to borrow that amount.
“Our goal is not to bond $12 million. We would love to say maybe half of that, if we need to. We don’t want to be at that maximum, but we appreciate the community giving us this tool,” she said.
Now the work turns to fine tuning designs on the building and finding a place for the public works operations.
Liegois said that will begin with some collective discussions with City Council and staff on finalizing the fire department plan as well as where to put the public works operations.
“We will have a relocation of public works. We’ve looked at several different ideas and is that adding onto another facility the city owns, or purchasing another facility or even building something,” she said.
“If we could find a building that would fit our needs, that we could rehab, that would be the best thing economically to do but we don’t have those answers yet.”
Liegois said she would hope that costs of that would be based on funds within “the public works structure” hinting that additional borrowing wouldn’t be a favorable option for that project.
The current waste water distribution center has been an option kicked around at City Hall as a possible place for expansion to house the public works department.
Fort Madison Mayor Matt Mohrfeld said the support speaks to the community being engaged in seeing the city grow.
“Fort Madison has spoken. This is all part of people engaging in the improved Grow Fort Madison. This shows the new fire station and emergency services are important to them,” he said.
He also credited the success of the vote to the work put in by the committee to get it passed.
“A lot of people did a great job of systematically telling this story. There’s no doubt about it. We’ve outgrown a fire station that is too small and out-of-date.”
Mohrfeld said the city wants to be in a new fire station within the next four years and are operating now under that premise.
“We’ll approach this with a task force that will involve council, staff, the mayor, and firemen. That way we get balanced input and then we’re going to look at the options. I have an opinion there. I like the location of the water distribution site. We have some land there and it would be a nice neighborhood improvement,” he said.
“But there’s no doubt we’ll have to be budget-conscious around this.”
Fire Chief Joey Herren said four years is an aggressive timeline, but seems to fit when you look at the time it takes to secure federal grants to help offset costs.
He said the firefighters are very appreciative of the mandate from the city to get a new station built.
"I know all the guys appreciate that support from the city. It's tough to ask that kind of money," he said.
"It was a very good showing for the effort that was put out. That was a team effort. Now we got to hit the ground running like we said we would and get to work on those grants."
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