WENATCHEE — The question wasn’t whether to put a bond request for a new fire station on November’s ballot. That was a given. The real quandary for the City Council on Thursday night was whether to tack on an additional approximately $1.9 million to fix up the old fire station on Chelan Avenue.
Council members decided against it, and instead approved an $11.7 general obligation bond to buy land and build a new fire station on Springwater Avenue.
Wenatchee Fire Chief Stan Smoke and Assistant Chief Mark Yaple had approached the council with two alternatives for November’s ballot: the $11.7 bond, or a $13.7 million bond, which included $1.9 million to renovate and repair the 80-year-old Chelan Avenue station.
Prior to the vote, Kelly Lindemann, a Wenatchee firefighter and president of the local firefighter’s union, urged the council to choose the $13.7 million option. He pointed out that the aged building has heating and cooling issues, old windows with no energy-efficiency properties, and diesel fumes and noise issues.
“When the street cleaner is out at night, we all hear it,” Lindemann said. “Meaning we suffer from sleep depravation.”
Councilwoman Karen Rutherford said she wanted to include both in the bond request: “I think trying to get a grant these days is very difficult. We need both fire station sites, so I think it would be strategic including both.”
Yaple agreed with Rutherford’s points, but had a problem with bringing virtually the same request to voters that they had voted down last November. The failed bond, which needed 60 percent approval to pass, could only muster 58 percent. Yaple said many of the people he spoke with afterward said they supported a new fire station, but balked at renovating the old one.
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