The union representing firefighters in the Town of Normal is continuing its campaign to keep the soon-to-close College Avenue fire station open — after a new station opens on the east side of town. The town insists there is no issue that needs to be addressed.
The union has scheduled a series of town hall–style community presentations to discuss the findings of its community needs study, and how firefighters say the current station placement, staffing levels, and rising call volume are impacting emergency response times and community safety.
Those begin at 1 p.m. Jan. 15 at the Activity and Recreation Center on Willow Street. Others are: 6 p.m. Jan. 29 at the Bloomington Public Library; 4 p.m. Feb. 12 at a location to be determined on the ISU campus; and at 7 p.m. Feb. 26 on Zoom.
The issue also surfaced again at this week's town council meeting. Town staff have called firefighter claims a false narrative.
“At this point, you know we have the data that backs up what we consider optimum response times. Of course, when you say optimum, you know you want every response time to be as short as possible, but the 4-6 minute window is a standard, and we adhere to that. And we've tested constantly to assure that locations of the new fire stations will meet that,” Mayor Chris Koos said on WGLT's Sound Ideas.
The town's average response varies depends on location, but Koos said the overall average is on the low end of the range at 4.25 minutes.
“We take fire protection and emergency runs incredibly seriously. We will not allow that to deteriorate in the community,” he said, repeating the cost to fulfill the union wishes is too high.
“Our calculations would be over a 10-year-period, it would be [a] $100 million investment in the town,” said Koos.
To pay for the investment, he said, would require a 134% increase in local property taxes, or boosting the sales tax from 2.5% to 4.5%.
Even adding a single ambulance would be costly.
“An ambulance runs about $400,000 and then you have staffing on top of that ambulance. To adequately cover all shifts, it would take about eight people,” said Koos. “Our estimates would be about $18 million over 10 years."
Council member Kathleen Lorenz talked about transparency at Monday's council meeting, suggesting a council work session to combine town and firefighter data to craft a solution.
“We see that as a solution looking for a problem,” said Koos.
If four or more council members want a work session, he said, the town would hold one, adding the town could talk about making its modeling more public — but there are limits.
“When you get into the data of the runs, and especially the ambulance runs, you get into HIPAA issues in terms of what you can talk about,” said Koos. “We put out to the public multiple times that we haven't seen any issues [with response times].”
Even if there were a problem, Koos said keeping the College Avenue fire station open would not be the fix. He said staff would likely do modeling on various scenarios.
“And see where our hot spots would be and try to adjust based on that. We're constantly looking at that data with live runs from certain areas,” said Koos. “We might have roving ambulances that hover near those areas.”
Peoria and Champaign use a hot spot-targeted approach to dispatching.
Koos said the town also is trying to fine tune the system that helps dispatch the closest vehicle to a medical call. In one recent example, a cardiac case happened only two blocks away from a fire station, but the first on the scene was a police officer equipped with an automatic external defibrillator [AED], he said.
The town also is examining software that would pre-empt traffic signals to reduce the time needed for emergency vehicles to arrive on a scene.
Hanging up the bicycle
On another topic, Koos said is selling his business, Vitesse Cycle.
“Fifty years is enough. I think it's time,” he said.
Koos does not expect to have much of a challenge deciding what do with with the extra free time. He remains the mayor. He sits on the Illinois Municipal League board of directors, on the [National] Amtrak Board of Directors, and is in leadership at the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
“Well, this is part of the issue for retirement. It was time," he said. "The entity I'm selling my business to is regional, not local. I have high confidence that they're going to continue the service that people expect from the ... cycle shop. They're very, very competent in the bike industry. They're keeping my employees there.”
He said selling Vitesse offers more opportunity to focus on those other things.
“Cycling is a young man's game, and I'm not that young man anymore. So, getting some new energy into the business, I think, is the right thing to do and the right time to do it,” said Koos.
