GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — During a recent orientation tour for new city council members, Melinda Eck and Jen Grant were introduced to the current conditions for firefighters at Station 3 on Shawano Avenue.
“After we left, Alder Grant and I talked about it, and we said they really deserve much better than this,” said Eck, who represents District 11 on the city’s west side.
Structural concerns and water damage are among the issues with the 85-year-old building.
The alders want to build a new station that would also house administrative personnel, which currently work at the 93-year-old Station 1 on South Washington Street.
To make it happen, the alders are proposing using $9 million of the city’s remaining American Rescue Plan Act money.
FOX 11 asked Eck and Grant how their proposal was an appropriate use of ARPA dollars.
“A big thing we feel is ARPA funds are federal tax dollars,” said Grant, who represents District 1 on the city’s east side. “At the end of the day, it’s our federal money, so we felt this project isn’t necessarily an if it needs to be done, it’s a when.’”
“Yeah, I’m not supportive of the use of ARPA funds for this purpose,” said Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich.
Mayor Eric Genrich says there aren’t enough eligible funds for a new fire station.
The city received a $23.7 million allotment of ARPA money. Genrich says $10 million of that can qualify for revenue loss purposes, which this project would fall under. About half of that has already been approved for other city projects.
Eck and Grant say they are looking at the possibility of the project qualifying for ARPA dollars as neighborhood enhancement or crime prevention.
Genrich says he likes the idea of combining the facilities but first wants to see the results of a facilities analysis. That is being done as part of a new ad-hoc facilities committee that is re-looking into the possibility of combining police and fire into a new headquarters. It’s previously been estimated as a $50 million project.
About six years ago, the city started to seriously talk about combining police and fire headquarters into one building. Mayor Genrich says the reason it hasn’t been done yet is money, but he believes creativity could be the thing to get it done.
“One thing I have talked about with Chief Litton and our community, and economic development department as well, is co-locating a fire station within a larger development, multi-family development perhaps,” said Genrich. “Fire administration down in Madison, for example, is located within a larger, I believe it’s a multi-family development, in downtown Madison.”
Grant and Eck say it could be a while before any of those plans come to fruition, and their proposal is a way to get one important piece done, which they believe the facilities analysis will show.
“Seeing what we’ve seen personally here, I would be very surprised if this wasn’t at the top of the list out of the five buildings,” said Grant.
The facilities analysis report is expected to be done within the next few weeks.
Green Bay’s city council will have a special meeting Aug. 16 to discuss how to use the city’s remaining ARPA dollars. About two-thirds of the city’s $23.7 million allotment has yet to be spent, according to city documents.
