Ash Grove Fire Protection District to request $1.65-million bond for new fire station

The Ash Grove Fire Protection District is asking local voters to approve a $1.65 million bond to pay for a new fire station, a new fire engine and other equipment when they go to the polls on Tuesday, Aug. 2. If it passes, the bond will be paid for with a $.38 increase to the district’s operating levy.

Funds needed to build new fire station
The proposed tax levy was announced during an open house at the Ash Grove fire station on Thursday, May 26. During the open house, Anthony Monnig, Ash Grove fire chief, said that the current fire station was no longer adequate for the district’s needs.
“We've gotten a lot of good use out of this station,” he said, “but we've reached a critical point with it that repairs that need to be made. At this point, it's just not economical; we are far better off to build new.”
Jackson Jones, a member of the Ash Grove FPD’s Board of Directors, said the new station is necessary because the wood-framed building that is the district’s current station has been damaged by repeated flooding.
“We've stewed on this for years,” he said. “Look at our station; it's leaking water right back here,” he said, pointing to where Chief Monnig was standing. “If you look, it's rotten.”
Jones added that the location was the problem. The city, he said, donated the land to the FPD to build the station on, but the location he said, collects water every time there's large rainfall.
“Every time it rains more than about two inches ... there is literally a river of water that runs through here,” he said.
Monnig said that if the district had to continue to use the same location, they would have to eventually tear down the station and build a new one, but that would pose additional challenges.
“The problem with that is, when you tear a firehouse down, what do you do with the apparatus? “Where do you go with it? Where is it stored, how do we get to it then, in the case of an emergency, which we have often? So, the easiest fix for that, and the most effective, is to build in a new location. This building stays up and running, and when the day comes to move, we just move everything over and start running out of the new station.”

Also needs to replace fire engine
Monnig said that in addition to the new station, the fire-protection district also needs a new fire engine.
“The second thing we need is a frontline fire apparatus,” he said. “Right now, our engine is 30 years old, and last year the maintenance costs on it was $14,000. (That) was what it costs just in maintenance to keep a 30-year-old fire engine on the road. We can't maintain that, not as a frontline apparatus. It would work great as a reserve apparatus for when maintenance is required on the frontline.”
Monnig said the cost of a new fire station is projected to be, at most, $1 million, while the new fire engine they are looking at, called a pumper/tender (capable of pumping and transporting water but can also serve as a fire engine) would cost about $400,000.

Bond would also pay for firefighting equipment
If the bond passes and the district can pay for a new fire station and a new apparatus, $250,000 from the bond funds would remain. That money, Monnig said, would go to purchase new self-contained breathing apparatuses (SCBA) and bunker gear. A SCBA costs $10,000, while bunker gear (the protective gear firefighters wear while fighting fires) costs $6,500 each, for a total cost of $16,500 per firefighter.

Equivalent to one McDonald’s extra value meal per month
Jones said residents shouldn’t be put off by the tax levy. Holding up the containers from a McDonald’s Big Mac Value Meal which he had purchased earlier in the day, he told the audience that the levy increase would cost some homeowners about the price of one of those meals, about $9.17, per month.
“If you own a $150,000 house,” he said, gesturing to the value meal containers, “this is about what it's going to cost you a month right here; $72 a year if you own a $100,000 house. That's about what it's going to cost you.”

If issue fails, district will carry on as best they can
Should the bond issue not pass in the August election, Monnig said, the district will continue to do the best it can with the resources it has available.
“There's no threat here,” he said. “There's nobody saying that service will be diminished if we don't get this bond. Nobody is saying that we'll have less people to run calls. We’ll have the people we have, (and) we will continue to use the budget that the community provides us with to do our best with what we have.”

More information
Anyone with questions or concerns about the bond issue is encouraged to contact Monnig at 417-751-3300 by phone or by e-mail at amonnig@ashgrovefire.com. Questions can also be submitted through the district’s Facebook page.