Matt Esnayra
The Daily News, Longview, Wash.
(TNS)
Jul. 27—For about seven years, the roughly dozen firefighters assigned over three shifts at Woodland’s Scott Avenue station have endured their 48- to 96-hour shifts inside a cramped three-bedroom modular home near their unfinished fire station.
This August, Clark-Cowlitz Fire Rescue aims to fix that by passing a levy lid lift to return the levy — first passed in 2017 — to its original rate, after dropping 24 cents as property values increased.
The department reports emergency service costs rise about 6% each year, while levy revenue can only increase 1% each year by state law. That’s why they are asking voters for the lift.
“If you only got a 1% cost increase every year at your job, and everything else goes up … at some point you have to ask your employer for a bump,” said John Nohr, Clark-Cowlitz Fire Rescue chief.
The proposed increase would cost the owner of a $600,000 home in the over 125-square-mile district — which includes the cities of Woodland, Ridgefield and La Center — $900 a year.
That levy lid lift — with the 2024 rate of $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value — would remain over the next six years.
The current levy rate costs the owner of a $600,000 home about $750 a year. That levy will remain even if the lid lift doesn’t pass, said Nohr, though the rate is dependent on current property values.
Election timeline
Monday: Online and mailed voter registrations must be received by 5 p.m.
Tuesday-Aug. 6: Voters can register or update addresses in person at the Cowlitz County Elections Office by 8 p.m.
Aug. 6: Ballots are due by 8 p.m.
Why the increase?
Department officials say they need the increase to pay for two new fire engines, maintain current staffing, and build and complete fire stations, including Woodland’s building at 250 E. Scott Ave. near the city’s police station.
Construction began in January 2017 and ended in the fall of the same year, Nohr said.
The city of Woodland covered the initial $1.5 million to build the current 3,300-square-foot apparatus bay and install 70 pilings into the ground to make the station earthquake resistant. This was before the city was annexed into the fire district in 2020.
The district covered about $150,000 to buy and outfit the modular home.
When four firefighters are at the station, two firefighters have to double up in one of the rooms of the modular home, which doesn’t have training space or a meeting room, Nohr added.
Right now, a minimum of three crew members — comprised of one captain and two firefighters — are working out of the building 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
But more staff is likely needed as emergency calls rise.
Across the district, calls are up around 40% compared to when the fire levy was last passed in 2017, the department reports.
Emergency calls are rising, in part, because the population is increasing. In Woodland, for instance, the city reports population rose 46% from 2000 to 2010, and about 19% from 2010 to 2020, with a population of 6,531 according to the 2020 U.S. Census.
Nohr said the department plans to add another 5,700 square feet to the apparatus bay building if the levy lid lift passes.
The finished fire station would have enough space for six personnel and for crews to conduct training exercises, complete reports, work on equipment and store equipment.
The completion would cost about $4.5 million to finish, he said, and would come from bonds called limited term general obligation bonds, basically loans from the existing general fund and approved by the fire commissioners.
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