By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
WALDPORT – The Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue board will soon be asking district residents if they would support a bond ranging from $7 million to $10 million to either remodel its downtown Waldport fire station, buy equipment and build a new Five Rivers sub-station or construct a new station outside the tsunami zone.
Seems like a simple enough question that the district be mailing to 2,000 households. And the mailed postcard is just that — directing people to the district’s website with four questions and areas to mark “Disagree” or “Undecided” or “Agree” and a comment area to state why or why not.
But like everything else involving public safety and money and taxes and voters and history it can be a lot more complicated.
Even when the Central Coast district and its board was in turmoil three years ago over personnel issues, it still found common ground to pursue ownership of the current station – the city of Waldport has owned it since the 1980s – and if it was possible to either move its headquarters to higher ground or at least bring it up to current public safety standards.
Now, an almost new five-member board wants to see if – and how – it might proceed.
“The underlying goal is to get the fire station out of the tsunami zone,” said fire chief Jamie Mason. “But the price tag of that has been too high for what we think the public would OK. Now we want to find out.”
The COCF&R’s bond questionnaire comes as Oregon Coast Community College asks voters in May to renew a small bond to build a trades education center and an impending much larger bond request in 2025 or 2026 by the Lincoln County School District.
The fire district will also need to ask voters in November 2025 or May 2026 to either renew or increase its major operating levy – one that mostly funds personnel and hasn’t been updated since it was approved 13 years ago.
The Central Coast board wants to make a “go/no go” decision on the bond by July so it could potentially put a measure on the November general election ballot.
Voter-approved bonds can only be used for hard assets like buildings and equipment, not to finance year-to-year operations that levies do.
Possibly included in the COCF&R bond are two other suggestions:
- Mason is proposing $850,000 for a new “first-out” engine and $450,000 for a new tender. The district has one engine each at its Waldport, Tidewater and Five River stations after a fourth engine’s pumps failed, it was determined it was not cost-effective to repair it and then sold as surplus. The district’s current “first out” engine was purchased second-hand from Eureka, Calif. in 2021, was built in 2009 and has more than 100,000 miles on it.
- The district has a small sub-station near the Coast Range community of Five Rivers that sits on private property. But that property was recently sold and the district anticipates it will have to buy land and erect a small building to house an engine there – at a cost of $500,000.
If the board decides to remodel the current station, purchase the engines and build the Five Rivers sub-station, the bond amount is estimated to be $7.5 million – with $5.67 of that million for the remodel. The district has also applied for a $2.5 million state grant for additional work to harden the downtown building to resist earthquakes.
Mason says if the district does not get the seismic grant, it can’t afford to do that on its own – and won’t during the remodel.
The cost of a remodeled or new station could be shaved substantially via a district request to Rep. Val Hoyle, D-Ore. Mason has applied to Hoyle’s office for an allocation of $3 million towards a remodeled or new station as one of her 15 yearly personal projects funded through the House Appropriations Committee. Many of Hoyle’s 4th Congressional District projects in 2023 went to rural public safety programs.
If the district decides to remodel the current station, it would also first need to spend $1 million of the bond to purchase the property from the city of Waldport. The district currently has a $40,000 yearly no-interest loan from the city that ends in 2028.
If the district buys the property, the fire board wants the city to commit to spend the $1 million proceeds to improve “fire flow” water supplies in key areas of Waldport – something both jurisdictions asked the 2023 Oregon Legislature to help fund but failed to get.
The fire board last week asked Mason to arrange a workshop meeting with the Waldport city council to discuss those issues. Two of the fire board’s members – Rick Booth and Greg Dunn – are also city councilors.
Levy/bond details
The Central Oregon Coast district currently has three levies it relies on to fund its $1.49 million yearly budget. They are:
- A permanent tax rate of 82 cents per $1,000 assessed property value;
- An operating levy of 35 cents per $1,000 that was increased and approved by voters in November 2022; and
- A general operations levy of $1.27 per $1,000 that expires in June 2026;
Those result in a total of $2.44 per $1,000 assessed property value, or $610 a year for emergency services on property assessed at $250,000.
If the COCF&R bond seeks a bond for $7.5 million, it would carry a tax rate of 60 cents per $1,000 – or an additional $150 a year for property assessed at $250,000. Mason is suggesting the bond be for 25 years.
Dozens of issues
Well, what’s so wrong with COCF&R’s current station?
In addition to basically remodeling the entire interior of the building, Mason and architects have outlined at least 20 issues with the station that used to house both Waldport city offices and the fire department, including:
- The upstairs living quarters for firefighters who work 48-hour shifts and Pacific West Ambulance personnel do not meet current safety codes;
- Much of the building needs to have fire sprinkers and alarms installed;
- The station needs another engine bay, and three of the four bays would be “drive-through” or accessible from the north or south;
- A remodel to fill a large, open gap between administrative offices and equipment bays;
- Re-do the station entrance to provide better security and separate public access to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s office;
- Replace the station’s bay doors so they will open during an electric outage or earthquake; replace the bay’s floors which are beginning to fail under the weight of larger engines; and install an exhaust removal system to keep air clean;
- Install a generator to power the station and install a fuel storage tank for emergencies;
- Replace the station’s roof, which now leaks and replace failing siding, some of which has dry rot;
- Remodel the crowded and unventilated personal protective equipment room to include proper removal of fire contaminants;
- Add a staff workout room, which is currently an array of equipment scattered in the rear of the engine bay; and
- Install two public electric vehicle charging stations in the parking lot along Hemlock Street.
Mason said if the public indicates it wants to move the station out of the tsunami zone and the board goes ahead with that idea, the district could simply return the station to the city, and ask to rent a single bay for one fire engine to maintain its insurance rating for downtown properties. The sheriff’s substation and ambulance staff could continue to use the facility, he said, if the city agrees.
But the first step is to get a gauge of the public’s willingness to spend money to turn the station into a facility that would last for up to 50 years.
“We’re going to get a wide range of responses,” Mason said. “But the board wants to hear from the community.”
- Quinton Smith is the editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com