PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles City Council plans to remove a westside fire station from the design of the joint public safety facility it is working on with Clallam County.
The fire station’s removal is contingent on the county’s commitment to jointly fund wastewater utility infrastructure to the site prior to transitioning to the construction phase of the project. But the county has not yet stated whether it will commit to it.
Clallam County sent a letter to the city recommending the fire station be removed from the project’s design because co-location of the facilities would cause dramatic cost increases and wouldn’t allow extra space for design modifications, Administrator Todd Mielke said.
The facility, with the fire station included, would cost about $28 million, according to the most recent estimate the county received. That only included on-site costs.
County commissioner Mike French said taking the fire station off the plan would result in considerable savings.
If the fire station were to be built on the 3.6 acres of land acquired for the project, Mielke said that would mean the public safety facility wouldn’t pass a stress test. That is because there wouldn’t be extra land to hold additional equipment or temporary structures needed in an emergency, he said.
It also wouldn’t be able to house needed communication towers and backup generators.
“We have a pretty clear project objective of a fully functional joint public safety facility,” Mielke said, but realizing that would be impossible if a fire station were co-located there.
Mielke said no decision has been made regarding whether the county will commit to jointly funding wastewater utility infrastructure to the site.
The grant funding secured for the project cannot be used for the utility infrastructure. Both Mielke and French said that means the city seems to be asking the county to pledge an unspecified amount of general funds to the project.
French said general fund dollars are “extremely valuable.”
“We do not like to obligate them unless we absolutely need to,” he said.
Alternatively, the county is looking into dedicating money from the Opportunity Fund toward wastewater for the project, French said.
If the county does not commit to jointly funding wastewater to the site, French said the worst case scenario is that the relationship between the city and county could be severed.
“My hope is that there is some room in there to agree with that request,” he said about the city’s request. “We’re just focused on timelines, because the escalation of costs are really difficult to manage. We want to make as many decisions as possible to keep the project on track and keep the partnership together.”
City Council member Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin said the partnership between the city and county “keeps going sideways” in this project.
“I don’t want it to fold,” he said, but he expressed doubt about the long-term success if the county doesn’t commit to the wastewater funding.
Schromen-Wawrin said the city is asking the county to commit to work together to figure out how to secure wastewater funding.
“If they can’t commit to that, we should really assess what the partnership looks like,” he said.
Now, building a fire station appears to be a backburner priority for the city.
Schromen-Wawrin said the fire station’s urgency “is not there the way that we were thinking it was.”
There also is the problem of securing funding for the project. Schromen-Wawrin said the city could probably build a fire station, but continual funding doesn’t exist to staff it.
Schromen-Wawrin said the big picture for the joint public safety facility is that the city and county are able to “respond when people are in the moments of their greatest need.”
“We are working together to get there,” he said. “The challenge is there are bumps along the road.”
________
Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
