ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second in a series of stories regarding the May 19 joint meeting between the Liberal City Commission and Seward County Commission to discuss a possible buyout of the county’s portion of the 15th Street fire station.
Today’s story talks about feedback from commissioners and city and county staff. Future stories will discuss an offer from the city commission to buy out the county’s portion.
After hearing from fire chiefs from the City of Liberal and Seward County about how an agreement to house both departments in the 15th Street fire station came to be, commissioners and staff on both sides provided viewpoints on putting the two departments back into the same building at the recent joint meeting of the commissions.
Seward County Commissioner Presephoni Fuller said she feels putting both departments back into the 15th Street station would create a lack of space for both the county and city.
“Going back to one building, it is almost like sardines in a can,” she said. “We have to factor in all of the building. That’s all of the housing that’s getting ready to go. Those are extra families. Those are extra people, and you’re going to need your space.”
Fuller likewise said both departments need extra space to train additional personnel.
“Making something fit so everybody can be happy, is that the answer?” she said. “Are we thinking in terms of future generations and future growth of the city as well as the county and members, bodies, personnel and families?”
Fuller added with constant changes on both commissions, priorities will change from one commission to the next.
“I want us to consider our citizens and our firefighters and what they’re having to go through in order to have their space and how we can do that,” she said.
Fuller said both the city and county must do what is feasible within budget, all the while taking the least amount of time to not impede the safety of residents.
“What would it cost to expand to the south in our part?” she said. “Do we have an estimate? We’ve never looked into an estimate to expanding the south side, the city side to expand it on 15th.”
Liberal Fire Chief Kelly Kirk said when the 15th Street station was constructed, the south end was left in order to add a bay for future expansion, and with this, the apron was not poured completely around the building.
“To get from one side of our property to the other, our trucks could drive off on 15th Street and back in,” he said. “The plan was they’d add a bay, and they’d add a 40-foot apron around to connect those sides. Some of our training on site would be hooking up to a hydrant and driving around to the other side and doing pump operations out in the park. We’re very limited with that now because we waited for what future expansion might happen.”
County commissioner Tammy Sutherland-Abbott too was not in favor of putting the two departments in one building, and she pointed to what happened with fire and EMS departments in Perryton, Texas, after a tornado hit that community a few years ago, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If you guys are expanding and we’re expanding, eventually, we’d be facing another problem,” she said.
City commissioner Matt Landry said if a little expansion is done right now and expansion continues with the anticipated growth, departments will outgrow the station no matter what happens.
“You’re going to be left having another meeting about what we think, and eventually, you’re going to run out of real estate in one building to expand off of,” he said.
Sutherland-Abbott said what is ultimately done will boil down to the city and county working on the financials of the situation. Fuller said documentation is in place, and a decision simply needs to be made.
Liberal City Manager Scarlette Diseker said city and county officials are all on the same page and want to do what is best for both departments.
“We just have to come to a financial agreement to go about that, and we all want to do that responsibly with the taxpayer in the forefront and in mind,” she said.
Mayor Jose Lara said city commissioners needed to decide to make an offer at that time or wait for an appraisal to be done on the property.
“Once we have the appraisal, are going to set a specific percentage, or are we going to still make an offer at that point?” he said.
Eventually, the city commission offered to buy out the county’s portion of the building for $500,000. County commissioners, however, opted to get an appraisal before accepting the offer.
Seward County Administrator April Warden said appraiser Evan Winchester could not provide them with an estimate at the time of the meeting, but Diseker said she expected to hear from Winchester the following day.
“He’s not allowed to do that, so the best we could provide you with today was the valuation notice that comes from the county appraiser, and that right now is $2,346,320,” Warden said.
County Counsel Nathan Foreman said a process was agreed to in 2007.
“There was some thought put into this on how the situation you find yourselves in, how the county is bought out, and it provides if the city wants to terminate the agreement, the city hires an appraiser at the city’s cost,” he said. “It goes on to say if we don’t like that appraisal, we can get our own appraiser, and we average the two. If the city doesn’t like the average of the two, another one can be hired, and we look at an average of all three. That becomes the price, and that price, we’re paid out at the rate of 40 percent. If you want to do something different, you’re going to have to modify the agreement or agree to do something different, but there is a procedure in place.”
Fuller said if the city’s proposal is agreeable, the county would relinquish any responsibilities or liabilities for that 15th Street building.”
“Water, gas, all of those things go away,” she said.
Lara said he preferred making an offer and ending the conversation for the sake of both fire departments.
“It would be nice to get together for the betterment of the community,” he said. “We will put some skin in the game and help the county out in this process because it also helps us out in that process, and it keeps the part of the memorandum in place where we offer them the space in the new station. This continues that process.”
While many believe the discussion of having both departments in the same building started with the construction of the 15th Street station, Warden said conversations go back much further than that.
“We did have files dating back to the 1970s,” she said. “There were substantial conversations about the two fire departments joining and a big study that was done at the time about how it didn’t make sense to join city and county fire, and we also have the city of Kismet that has to be considered when we’re all talking about county. This isn’t something that just happened in the last five years. This is something that’s been going on for quite some time.”
Warden said as far back as 1982, rural fire, emergency management and EMS were also housed as part of the fire department. She added she feels Kirk and Seward County Fire Chief Andrew Barkley have a good working relationship.
“It’s important whatever you guys consider, both sides of the commission, this has a public interest too,” Warden said. “The public wants to see how we’re all going to come together and have a good resolve of this situation where it benefits both the city and the county and the growth. Both chiefs have done a great job making sure the needs are met. They’re under different mandates these days from when this originally started. A fire station can sustain itself for 50 years, but we never know what regulations we’re going to have upon us.”
Sutherland-Abbott said a bigger county fire department is needed.
“It’s 30 miles across our county north to south, and Liberal has a lot of firefighters for Liberal, but if you live where I live, it takes them 25 minutes to get to my house,” she said.
Warden said the city and county both have great leaders in their fire departments, and she hopes an agreement can be reached to support both chiefs and the service both departments provide to constituents.
Kirk said the Liberal Fire Department needs to grow as well, as the department has added new equipment recently.
“We added a third pumper,” he said. “We got a new ladder truck that replaced the 30-year-old ladder truck. The old ladder truck is now at Station Two. The FAA made us buy a new truck. We’ve added apparatus too, and while we’re not using that stuff, we’ve got things double parked at the south station so we can fill the space easily, and we haven’t outgrown it yet. It wouldn’t take too long.”
At this time, the city of Liberal’s city limits sit less than a mile from Road 7, commonly known locally as Salley Road, and Kirk said if the city limits were to extend to Salley Road, a fourth fire station would need to be looked at maintain the city’s Insurance Service Offices (ISO) rating.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to put the two departments together because they’re both built to do the job they’re designed to do,” he said.
Barkley said he has looked into consolidation many times, and while a department’s staff does not shrink, that consolidation could still run as much as $8 million.,
“You’re going to have to increase that to keep your ISO rating and to provide the service,” he said. “You can’t just pull everybody from 15th Street to go to the county to fight a fire. You still have to have staff there, and now you’re doubling and tripling your staff consolidation. It’s a big price tag.”
