Port Moody's new No. 1 fire hall will be built on schedule and well under its voter-approved $16-million budget, the city's mayor promised.
And Joe Trasolini picked a select committee Tuesday tasked with ensuring the construction of the hall moves forward after hitting political stumbling blocks last week.
The three-member committee was chosen at a special meeting of council following the previous week's eleventh-hour defeat of a bylaw to borrow up to $16 million to begin construction to replace a building that's considered unsafe in case of an earthquake.
Coun. Karen Rockwell was picked to chair the fire hall task force and is joined by councillors Gerry Nuttall and Meghan Lahti as well as by two members of the Port Moody Fire Department who will serve as non-voting advisors.
Trasolini told The Tri-City News on Wednesday the committee was directed to look at:
new designs and locations for the hall, supplanting the spacious, three-storey proposal for the current site at Ioco Road and Murray Street;
and a new funding model that relies less on property tax increases.
Both measures are part of an effort to cut $2 million to $6 million from the $16 million budget that Port Moody residents approved in a referendum last month.
Trasolini said that he believed the previously approved fire hall plan was too big and expensive for Port Moody's needs and he would be remiss if he didn't instruct council to have one more look at potential cost-saving measures for the project before its approval.
"We can't build today for what they might need 30 or 40 years from now. We have to make sure there is ability to expand on the site but surely we're not going to be building today and expending today's capital for something that might be used 15, 20, 30, 40 years from now," Trasolini said, adding, "It was a mistake to design larger. We were designing facilities to accommodate 10 firefighters per shift as opposed to the five we need today."
The fire hall committee must present its report to council detailing other possible fire hall sites, building designs and funding options by the end of June.
That leaves less than two months for the committee to solicit new designs, new locations and establish a new funding model, all while shaving millions of dollars from the initial hall estimates.
That means: A smaller hall than the previous 2,392 sq. m plan; on cheaper land than the current site, which requires extensive piling due to poor soil composition; and potentially paid for in part, Trasolini said, by leveraging city owned properties.
And while Trasolini couldn't comment on where else the hall could be located, he said it must be built in the area around Port Moody city hall, encompassing Newport Village, the Noons Creek Bridge, the city works yard and Suter Brook village.
The mayor said he's confident the city will meet the original construction timeline, including the submission of the plans, location and budget in June, finalizing those plans by December and completing construction roughly 18 months later, or by mid-2013.
Port Moody FD's deputy fire chief, Gord Parker, told The Tri-City News the department is confident the city is committed to getting the new hall built and getting it built soon.
"We just want a functional hall," Parker said. "We're living in a building that we know needs to be replaced and we're comfortable that both council and city administration know that as well. So we want to make sure the wheels keep rolling forward, and with the formation of the task force, it seems to be moving in that direction. But I think time will tell."
Apparently responding to the outpouring of public criticism directed at city council for shying away from borrowing the voter-approved $16 million to build the hall, Mayor Trasolini said, "While a referendum was carried out, unlike an election, it doesn't mean that council has to act. It means that council has to consider it."
The April 16 referendum was held to get voter approval to borrow up to $16 million from the province's municipal finance authority for the fire hall; 58% of those who cast a ballot voted in favour of borrowing the money but, since just over 9% of eligible voters participated, many councillors and the mayor had second thoughts about whether the loan was in the best interests of Port Moody residents.
At the April 26 meeting, besides Trasolini, councillors Meghan Lahti, Gerry Nuttall and Karen Rockwell voted against going ahead with the plan while councillors Mike Clay and Bob Elliott voted in favour of following the direction from the referendum.
