Tumwater’s fire department will now pursue a new strategic plan after voters rejected a ballot measure that would have created a regional fire authority (RFA) with Olympia, Fire Chief Brian Hurley told the Tumwater Civil Service Commission on Thursday, June 13.
The new strategic plan would cover the department’s plans and long-term objectives within a five-year timeframe. As part of the plan, Hurley said they would have to assess their deployment model as call volumes continue to grow.
The fire department is also looking to have a third fire station, which they would have to study where to locate.
Hurley assured the commission that the strategic planning process would involve community members to hear what they want for the fire department.
The fire department is going to send out a request for a proposal within the next weeks for a consultant to conduct an agency evaluation and help the organization with the new strategic plan.
Once they have hired a consultant, Hurley said they would need five to six months starting from probably October for the process to play out. Hurley explained they would need that much time as the process would involve a lot of data collection and public outreach meetings.
“We certainly don't want to rush that process, because this is going to lay our course for the coming years for the organization,” Hurley said.
Nearly 64% or 11,528 Tumwater and Olympia voters voted to reject the ballot measure on April 25 that would have created the RFA and passed a plan describing how the new organization would have been funded.
The RFA would have consolidated the resources of the two cities to provide fire protection and emergency services in both cities. With the proposals struck down by voters, Tumwater’s fire department will now have to reassess their needs and create a new strategic plan.
Hurley said that the department’s last strategic plan ended in 2020 and that any further planning was put on hold as they went through the process of forming the RFA.
Correction, July 18, 2021: 11,528 votes was 63.66% of ballots cast.
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mathisje
A few (or more) years ago, Tawwater finally finished a second fire station for its 17,000+ citizens. Not long after, the City completed a major annexation increasing the population by about 50%. It seemed to have forgotten about additional fire services in the planning. There was never bond or levy proposal to fix the problem. Instead, the City waived a magic RFA wand, but it broke. Maybe better planning and more traditional funding approach would work? I hope that TPD is not a stressed by the City's failure as fire department.
Tuesday, July 18, 2023 Report this
jimlazar
Every Fire Department should have a continuously updated strategic plan, and Tumwater is doing the right thing.
Tumwater did not really think adequately about the fire service issue in their annexation. They actually paid the rural fire districts a "departure fee" to help those departments survive with the huge loss of tax base that occurred, but did not factor in the cost of expanding their own fire service to serve the larger areas. Fire stations, fire engines, and fire fighters are all expensive.
Olympia is in the midst of a similar error in their plans to annex the SE Olympia urban growth area -- Indian Summer, Wilderness, Sten Village, and other neighborhoods along the Yelm Highway. This area is almost entirely residential, and it is well understood in municipal finance that residential annexations do not pay for themselves. There are two different studies, one by the City staff and one by a consultant, both of which showed this annexation as a huge financial loser to the City, the Finance Committee of the City Council still opted to move ahead with further steps towards this money pit of an annexation.
Olympia would need to build an additional fire station, and hire more fire fighters and police officers. Plus maintain streets, build and maintain parks, and more. It would cost Olympia more than the additional taxes they will receive.
The residents in the annexation area would get better police and fire service than they have now with a rural fire district and the Sheriff. But they would pay significantly higher taxes (property, sales, and utility taxes) per home. The way the law is written, the residents don't get a choice of whether to be annexed or not -- the developers who built the developments signed those rights over to the City of Olympia years ago in exchange for favorable treatment extending water and sewer.
Tuesday, July 18, 2023 Report this
JohnGear
This is as perfect an illustration of "The Growth Ponzi Scheme" as there can be. All over America, planners and officials want urban level amenities with very sub-urban levels of development and densities dominated by single-family detached homes, which are hugely wasteful of land and are the lowest productivity there is in terms of generating enough revenue to pay for the services demanded to that land.
People go bananas over the multifamily tax abatements used to promote building in downtown Olympia but never say a word about the much larger money drain of annexing suburban tract housing and running all the infrastructure way out to the edge of town to serve it. That is a far greater hit to our productivity and a far greater subsidy to wealthy developers than any amount of tax abatements that results in development of land in the existing urban core.
Every official in government should read Chuck Marohn and Strong Towns "Growth Ponzi Scheme" articles before approving any further annexations or comp plan reviews and updates. South Sound localities are "growing" themselves to death by falling for the Growth Ponzi Scheme again and again and again.
Here is a menu of articles exploring the Growth Ponzi Scheme and how it bleeds local governments to death:
https://actionlab.strongtowns.org/hc/en-us/articles/360054377171-Growth-Ponzi-Scheme-Top-Content
Wednesday, July 19, 2023 Report this