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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
February 10, 2022     Shelton Mason County Journal
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February 10, 2022
 
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.. "WWW, «we "7‘. nefiw .m-m .fivw. M. vufln ~__._W WWWWwewmwwwm—umwa from page 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