Mayor Tari Renner said Tuesday he’d like to firm up plans this year for a new fire station that would cut down 911 response times in northeast Bloomington.
Response times in northeast Bloomington have been a concern for years. Speaking on WGLT’s Sound Ideas, Renner said city officials are still discussing how a new station would impact other existing ones. It’s possible the city would build two smaller stations and then leave or decommission an existing facility, Renner said.
Renner said the goal is to respond to 90% of calls within 6 minutes.
“It would be nice to get this going by the end of the year, to have some plans in place and moving forward,” Renner said.
A new station may not require that many new hires, he said.
“It may be comparatively few. We may only be talking about a half-dozen people or fewer. And depending on how this is structured, it could be that we have very few new personnel,” Renner said.
As for location, Renner said they're circling Ward 9 or certain parts of Ward 5 or Ward 3.
Hear Renner’s full interview on Sound Ideas:
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