Fire Station Funding Comes Up Short

With the memory of deadly wildfires still fresh, Riverside voters overwhelmingly approved a $20-million bond in November to replace four fire stations and other facilities. But it now appears the measure will pay for only three stations, and City Council members are fuming.

Today the council will consider stopping all design work on the stations and referring the matter to a council committee to figure out what to do next.

“When we sold the bond, we said four fire stations. We need to build four fire stations,” said Councilman Ed Adkison, who along with Councilman Steve Adams is recommending the halt. “The public loses trust in government when things like this happen.”

About $12.8 million of the $20-million bond was supposed to pay for replacing four outdated and cramped fire stations, with the remaining funds earmarked for building an emergency operations center, replacing training facilities and paying other costs. The bond language did not specify a number of fire stations, but city and fire officials repeatedly referred to four stations in urging voters to support the bond.

In April, the City Council approved a $1.5-million contract with RRM Design Group that calls for building new fire stations to replace the downtown, northside and eastside stations and improving a fourth station in La Sierra. It was approved without discussion by council members, who now say that the change from four stations to three should have been highlighted in the staff report.

“It’s a policy decision,” Adkison said. “It should have come back to council to decide that.”

Fire Chief Dave Carlson said that the bond was intended to pay for four stations, but increased construction costs and rising land values now make that unlikely. He said the department initially believed the stations would cost $220 per square foot, but realized in March that the cost would be about $300 per square foot.

“Costs have gone up. There’s not enough money,” Carlson said. “I would love to be able to build four fire stations. They’re going to have to come up with some money someplace, or we could make the stations smaller, but that’s shortsighted for the future.”

But Councilman Dom Betro, who was elected in January, said he believes the $20-million figure was a low-ball approach designed to appeal to voters.

“The bond was insufficient to begin with, and it was based on, as far as I can tell, some survey results that said this was all people would want to pay for, knowing we had more needs than that,” he said.

“The former City Council has to take responsibility for issuing an initiative for a bond amount that was deficient. It was not based on need; it was based on politically what they thought they could get.”

He said the city needs to find a way to fund all four stations.

“We need to clarify what exactly we can get for our money at this point and time, and have enough information to be in a position to see how we fund the four fire stations, which needs to happen,” Betro said.