Sycamore residents debate need for new fire station

SYCAMORE – Is a new fire station a want or need for the city of Sycamore? One Sycamore resident, backed by several others during a recent public meeting, is calling that into question.

Ted Strack, the Sycamore Park District board’s representative on the Sycamore Planning and Zoning Commission, said he believes city officials should hold a referendum and instead ask voters to decide whether the city should continue efforts to construct a new fire station.

Monday’s Sycamore City Council meeting was well attended, with dozens more than the typical number of people in the audience. Only Strack spoke about the fire station proposal. When asked by the Daily Chronicle for their opinion, however, other residents in attendance said they were there to support Strack’s comments.

City officials including City Manager Michael Hall have said they believe the station can be funded without raising property taxes by eliminating existing debt and borrowing $10 million to fund the construction of a new facility.

According to city documents, money previously applied to past debt, along with ambulance fees, will be reapplied to new debt to cover debt service payments required for a new fire station.

Strack said he thinks something else could be used with those bond funds.

“I have another idea for that money: Return it to the taxpayers, give them some tax relief,” Strack said.

Without final plans, officials have said the exact cost of replacing the city’s 66-year-old fire station at 535 DeKalb Ave. is uncertain. One architect firm estimated that it would cost between $11.4 million and $13.6 million.

Since then, however, officials have revealed that Ideal Industries has donated land for a new fire station at the southwest corner of Borden Avenue and South Prairie Drive.

Hall also said the money gained from this year’s property tax increase is being used for new city positions and essentially can’t be unspent.

A year ago, the Sycamore City Council approved of raising the property tax levy for residents to fund more first responders on the city’s payroll.

“We spent about five or six months going over this with the City Council, going over this, talking about we wanted to raise property taxes for three new police officers,” Hall said. “We also did the [fire] battalion chiefs, and we did three new police officers.

“So that’s why the increase, and that’s something the City Council voted on in order to increase property taxes for those new individuals. So essentially six more employees, mainly police and fire.”

Hall said it had been more than 12 years since the city increased the number of positions at the police or fire departments.

The City Council has not yet formally decided how or if the fire station will be funded.

Decisions that will affect taxpayers in 2024 are expected to be on the council’s agenda a few times before the end of the year. Hall said he will present options for the 2024 property tax levy at the Nov. 20 meeting, and a preliminary public hearing on the proposed budget will be held Dec. 4.

A final vote on the city’s 2024 budget is expected Dec. 18, Hall said.

Strack, chief financial officer at Communities by Grainger, said he recently sat down with Hall, Sycamore Chief Bart Gilmore and Deputy Chief Jim Ward for a chat about the proposed fire station.

He said the officials told him there were three main reasons given: response time, safety and building condition.

He didn’t dispute the apparent need to improve the building’s condition. Officials have said the building is not compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act regulations, contains asbestos and is heated by a boiler as old as the building.

Strack said he’s not convinced that a new fire station outside the downtown area would improve first responder times.

Gilmore, however, stressed that he believes a new fire station would, stating that data collected by city officials supports his call for a new fire station.

In Monday’s City Council meeting, Gilmore presented a map that showed calls for emergency response times in Sycamore.

Gilmore said the map was created by DeKalb County Information Management and Geographic Information System office workers.

Data shows calls within a 1½ mile radius around the current and proposed fire station locations. Gilmore said the radius represents how far firefighters can travel and arrive to a destination within four to six minutes of a 911 call.

The fire chief, who spent most of his career in DeKalb, said the proposed location for the new fire station is at the “dead center of the highest call volume south of Route 64,” and would allow for firefighters to respond to emergencies much more quickly.

“If you look at the circle of current Station 1, you’ll see that it overlaps significantly with Station 2′s,” Gilmore said in an email to the Daily Chronicle. “By moving the station further south, we expand our coverage more deeply into our highest area of call volume without losing coverage between the two response circles.”