February 10, 2022 Shelton Mason County Journal | ![]() |
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housing to an existing fire
station. ‘
“Now we can house the fire-
fighters who use that two-truck
garage bay,” Bakken said. “The
developer used private equity
to get that building built and
install its infrastructure. If
we’d done a similar project, we
would have had to use prevail.-
ing wages and contracts and
followed all the. procedures
public entities are required to.”
Bakken estimated that
would have cost the depart-
ment $1.5 million, as opposed
to the $540,000 it spent to pur—
chase the already-developed
property.
Bakken assured taxpayers
that no tax money 'was used
to purchase the. property, and
nothing was subtracted from
the department’s operations
or spending. The fire authority
covered the purchase through
state Department of Natural
Resources timber sales.
“DNR has had almost re-
cord-breaking timber sales
over the last. two years, which
have providedthe fire author-
ity with pretty significant
amounts of money,” Bakken
said. “We bank that money and
put it into our reserves. We
don’t spend it on operations.
When we need to buy a truck,
or if we have other capital
costs, we can use those monies
for that.” .
Bakken said the fire
it “is
Thursday, Feb. 10, - Shelton-Mason County Journal Page A-47
imam ' V
North Mason Regional Fire Authority’s district includes all of the Tahuya
Peninsula and
the south shore of Hood Canal from Twanoh State Park to Belfair. The fire
extinguishers
denote NMRFA stations. Green 'are currently‘staffed, red is unstaffed
and Trails End, in
blue, will be staffed in the future. Graphic courtesy of
authority was able to pay for
r the property in cash while still
leaving the department’s exist-
ing 7_-acre property available
for future development.
“That would probably be
SELFSTORHGE
another five or 10 years on ,”
Bakken said. “If we sell the
property we’ve just purchased,
it could be used as seed money
for our next building.”
Meanwhile, Bakken said
he believes the three-bedroom
house, complete with a‘kitchen
and bathroom, could be con-
verted to a fire station facil-
ity Within a week, once stan-
dard requirements such as fire
. $15 per banker’s b0x
In oflfice bin
pickedup monthly by
AllShred
if
2 Response: Trails End fire station will become staffed
alarm and sprinkler systems
are installed. ‘
Bakken is unsure how the
living quarters and garage bay
might be connected, but the
fire department has applied for
an Assistance to Firefighters
SAFER (Staffing for Adequate
Fire and Emergency Response)
grant so the federal govern-
ment might provide for four po-
sitions to helpstaif the station
“but we won’t know about that
until August or September.”
Bakken also suggested
student firefighter programs
might help fill the staffing
gap so Fire Station “can
cover everyone around Trails
End Lake and improve our re-
sponse times to single digits,
in minutes, to get to anyone on
the South Shore.”
Bakken said he felt an ur-
gency to contact the Herald
about this development “be—
cause it happened so fast. The
commissioners moved quiékly
to make the purchase, get‘the
sale and make sure no one else
bought it. They just made the
purchase on Tuesday,” he said
Feb. 4, “but Trails End Lake is
a tight-knit community, so we
wanted facts circulating before
rumors.”
Although this particular,
decision was made quickly,
Bakken reiterated that the
department’s intent to im-
prove its response times to the
South Shore has been part of
its five-year plan for the past
10 years.
23270 NE Site Rt. 3- Bean, wagssz
(360) 275-2257 www.BelfairSelfStOrage.com