THE FIRE STUDY - YOU PAID FOR IT

Brief update on Goodyear's study to determine where fire stations are needed in its All-America City.

We've been following fire service demands and the city's response to these growing pains for the past year.

Council and city staff decided to hire an independent company to study the need for additional stations at the taxpayer's expense. On several occasions, as we've reported, the city manager stated the study would be completed and results reported to council by this month.

Proposed land for Fire Station 186 near W. Willis and S. Rainbow Valley Roads.

That hasn't happened... yet construction around town and in Estrella continues.

We also do not have the cost of the taxpayer-funded study available.

At left is where we believe the proposed Estrella fire station, No. 186, would be built.

Currently, Estrella is served by one fire station, No. 182, which is stressed by response times to Estrella's southern-most communities of CantaMia and Montecito.

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To get up to speed on what we've covered so far, please visit these links:
Patient Care Coordination Update: September 18, 2016
Waiting Game: July 11, 2016
CantaMia Growth and Fire Service Demands: July 10, 2016
Estrella House Fire Response Times: June 29, 2016
Goodyear Under Fire: June 28, 2016
Fire Station Funding: March 17, 2016
Triggers, Thresholds, and Fire Service Demands: March 10, 2016
Saving Lives, City Budgets, and Growth in Estrella: January 26, 2016
Community Paramedicine: December 2015

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On June 28th, council spelled out what a timeline might look like for a study, construction, and completion of a new fire station in Estrella and for west Goodyear.

The original time frame for the study was outlined by Councilmember Osborne.

•     A year for the study
•     A year to design the stations
•     18 months to train staff and get them on board

By the time this is all completed, all the triggers could be met or exceeded. An explanation of those triggers can be found here.

We know our police chief and our fire chief could want to say, ‘We need more,’ because we have allowed growth to occur in the pattern that we have and try to serve the community. So my concern is this report that we’re now going to PAY for - and I’m gonna tell you right now is going to be $50,000 and will police will be $65,000 to pay to have this report done - and it comes back and tells us that we’re ‘very short’ - what are we going to do then? Not that we don’t want to ask the question because we’re afraid of what the answer is, but we have to be prepared that intuitively we all  know that we’re short and we all see the financial picture particularly as it’s laid out in the CIP that we’re not even talking about having, um, the development money till the early ’20’s… those could be five years too late.” ~Councilmember Bill Stipp, February 29, 2016

So, we continue to wait. YOU PAID FOR IT. How much? We don't know. Early expectations, were guessed at around $65,000.

We are expecting results and a council work session be pushed back to December. We'll be there.