Saratoga News

Saratoga Fire District expects new facility will require bond

Expected FEMA money never did materialize

Mayor says he backs plan

By Sarah Lombardo

Saratoga Fire District officials say they will probably have to approach voters with a bond issue in 1999 to raise enough funds to build a new firehouse.

Fire Commissioner Jay Geddes said no cost estimates are available yet, but the district plans to have initial drawings done of a proposed new building so that such costs could be hammered out. But, he told City Council members Feb. 10, a new facility would probably run between $1 million and $2 million.

Geddes said the district had hoped to pay for a new building with money from its reserves and with assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which had made funds available to departments in need of such repairs. But recent news that FEMA had denied the district's request meant that a bond was probably the district's only way to go, although those from the district still hope to fund the project.

According to Geddes, one of the criteria for receiving funding was that the building had to have unreinforced masonry. The Saratoga Fire District, located on the corner of Saratoga Avenue and Los Gatos-Saratoga Road, does have a masonry wall, but Geddes said officials were not sure about how much of it was unreinforced.

"We made the first muster," Geddes said of the assistance request process, "but we were shot down. My guess is a bond is the only option we'll have."The district has been working on plans for a new facility for more than three years, after a July 1994 report by structural engineer Ed Meserve showed that the firehouse had weak walls, an improperly attached roof and a parapet that could fall in an earthquake. The firehouse, into which the district moved in 1923, needs so many seismic upgrades and retrofitting that it could hinder fire service in the event of an earthquake.

Original plans for a new facility included buying land currently occupied by the U.S. Postal Service's Village post office and expanding both the Santa Clara County sheriff's department's substation and the firehouse or razing the entire area and building a public safety complex that would house the sheriff's department and the fire district, possibly keeping post office boxes in the complex.

At first, problems arose with buying the Postal Service's land, and more recently, Geddes told the council that the sheriff's department can only guarantee its current location next to the post office for a year at a time.

"If we are going to make such a major capital expenditure, we'd like a little longer commitment," Geddes said.

That leaves the option of knocking down the current firehouse and building another one. The current firehouse, originally an auto repair shop, has been remodeled so many times over the years that it is considered to have no historical value.

City Councilmembers said they would support the project, especially since it would keep the district at its current location.

"The city is going to encourage the fire district to renew the facilities so necessary to the city's safety," Mayor Don Wolfe said.

[ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ]