Jen Zettel-Vandenhouten
The Pine Journal, Cloquet, Minn.
(TNS)

Feb. 20—THE TOPIC — The Cloquet Area Fire District has asked the Minnesota Legislature for $10 million in bonds to put toward the construction of a new fire station.

BACKGROUND: Officials in the CAFD have talked about building a new fire station for the past six or seven years, said Chief Jesse Buhs. Legislators included a similar request from the CAFD in last year’s bonding bill, but a bonding bill was never passed.

The district’s headquarters (508 Cloquet Ave.) is aging and located on a site that restricts what the district can do with the building, Buhs said. Furthermore, infrastructure in the building is old and expensive to repair.

“It’s a need in my mind because of the age of our facility, because of the limitations it creates, of the significant maintenance and infrastructure issues that we’re having — everything from plumbing failures on a consistent basis to all of our heating and air conditioning components failing one piece at a time,” Buhs said. “We had taken a stance that essentially we were going to build a new facility, so we had put off a lot of major overhaul or consideration for a complete remodel and infrastructure repair in that building, but at some point we either have to do that or we have to build a new facility.”

The CAFD owns 13 acres next to Sappi Fine Paper, which is where officials would look to build a new station if the bonding request is approved.

Despite the need for a new station, Buhs said officials don’t want the burden to fall solely on local taxpayers.

“The understanding that the taxpayers are taxed pretty heavily already between all the city, county, state, federal taxes that they pay, and we don’t believe it’s reasonable at this time to look at local taxpayer dollars to fund a fire station project,” Buhs told the Cloquet Pine Journal.

Buhs said he wanted to make it clear that the district would not build a new station unless it receives bonds from the state.

“Until the funding component comes into place, there is not a plan to build a new facility at this time,” Buhs said.

If the CAFD’s bonding request is approved, the money would cover up to half the cost of a new facility. Since officials don’t want taxpayers to foot the bill, Buhs said one of his primary goals is finding new revenue streams to cover the remainder of the costs, including grants from federal, state and local agencies.

The $10 million figure also doesn’t mean the organization would build a $20 million facility.

“The $10 million ask is just a starting point and as we work our way through the bonding process,” he said. “As long as we stay included in their consideration, then we start to dive into the actual costs. … We just wanted to make sure we didn’t sell the taxpayers in our area short.

“If, for example, we would have asked for $5 million, and the total project cost was $11 or $12 million, we’re a million or two less than what we could have received from the state,” Buhs said.

WHAT’S NEXT: State Sen. Jason Rarick, R-Pine City, and Rep. Jeff Dotseth, R-Kettle River, have introduced legislation to grant the CAFD’s bonding request. The measures have been referred to the Capital Investment Committee, according to online records.

In the meantime, officials will have to wait and see how the bonding process plays out, Buhs said.

The Deep Dive is a monthly feature produced by Cloquet Pine Journal staff. Have an idea for a topic you want us to dive into? Email

news@pinejournal.com.

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(c)2023 The Pine Journal (Cloquet, Min

Paige Cornwell
The Seattle Times
(TNS)

Feb. 20—Redmond residents shouldn’t see much of a change when a new fire engine arrives in the Eastside city in a few years. The vehicle will still be fire-engine red, respond from the department’s Station 12 and blare its sirens for calls in southern Redmond neighborhoods.

Up close, they’ll be able to hear one key difference: The electric fire engine will be far quieter than the noise and vibrations that emit from a standard fire engine running on diesel.

But city officials are most excited about the unseen and unheard change. This new fire engine has zero emissions and will be the first of its kind in Washington and among the first throughout the U.S.

The Redmond City Council accepted a grant earlier this month from the Washington State Department of Ecology to buy a Pierce Volterra electric fire engine that will be ready in about two years. The grant covers about a fourth of the $2.3 million in costs for the vehicle and charging infrastructure.

The purchase falls under Redmond’s overall climate strategy, which includes a goal of carbon neutrality for city operations by 2030 and community-wide carbon neutrality by 2050.

“We want to be an industry leader in purchasing electric vehicles,” Redmond Fire Chief Adrian Sheppard said. “We hope that this spurs a lot of confidence in people.”

The ecology department’s grant program made $5 million available to replace diesel fire apparatuses with new electric ones. The grant is from a partnership between the Washington State Diesel Program and Volkswagen Settlement Grant Program, provided as part of a massive settlement from Volkswagen following allegations that the company violated the Clean Air Act.

The Seattle and Bellevue fire departments also submitted applications and are in the process of having their grant agreements completed, according to Molly Spiller, the Department of Ecology’s Volkswagen unit supervisor.

Spiller said fire vehicles are a logical choice for a zero-emission strategy. They can be in use for decades and take frequent trips, with lots of idling. An idling vehicle can contribute to a buildup of pollutants like carbon monoxide in fire stations, increasing the health risks for firefighters and other emergency workers.

The Volterra engine is built to order by Pierce Manufacturing, a Wisconsin-based company that boasts having built the first electric fire truck in service in North America. Sheppard and other city officials visited Madison, Wisconsin, which started using an electric engine last year to see what it was like, and said he felt confident that Redmond would also benefit from replacing its rig.

“All outward appearances looked exactly the same, and it would be very minimal in terms of what we would have to adjust to, of placement of tools and equipment,” he said.

Other cities including Los Angeles and Portland have added or plan to add electric fire trucks to their fleets.

Redmond will add a charging station to Station 12, which serves the city’s Overlake, Viewpoint, Grass Lawn and Rose Hill neighborhoods. A full charge takes about 90 minutes, according to Pierce Manufacturing, and the vehicle also has a backup diesel engine.

Spiller pointed to the movement toward electric school buses and how more and more aging buses are being replaced by electric models. The same could happen for emergency fleets, she said.

“We are really excited to see the momentum building,” she said.

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(c)2023 The Seattle Times

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