March 30, 2023
By Landry Brewer
Elk City voters will decide Tuesday if their fire and police stations will be expanded and modernized.
Tuesday’s municipal ballot will give locals the chance to repurpose and extend an existing half-cent sales tax to provide needed fire and police department upgrades.
This would include expanding the Elk City Fire Station, which was built 70 years ago when fire crews and fire trucks were considerably smaller.
“The bunkroom where the firemen sleep holds seven beds for an eight-man shift,” said Elk City Assistant Fire Chief Brian Pierce.
Pierce also explained that the fire station kitchen, dining area and day space was built for three to four people, but it feeds and provides living space for a crew of eight during each 24-hour shift.
This is because the Elk City Fire Station was designed for three-man and four-man shifts when it was built seven decades ago.
“In 2003, we went to a six-man shift and started running the medical emergencies,” Pierce said.
Then the ECFD upsized again and began operating with eight-man shifts. When this happened, another locker room was needed.
“A closet in the fire station was remodeled and turned into a second locker room,” Pierce said.
The fire station was also built to house the smaller fire trucks of the 1950s. Today’s fire engines are much larger, and the fire station can’t accommodate all of them.
In fact, the fit is so tight when the fire trucks are parked in the truck bay that only one fireman can enter a brush truck at a time. “The driver will get in and actually has to pull the truck outside the building for the other firefighter to get in the other side,” Pierce said.
This can slow response time in an emergency.
If approved by Elk City voters Tuesday, the repurposed and extended sales tax would provide these needed public safety improvements without raising taxes.
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