By GARRET JAROS/Lincoln Chronicle
EDDYVILLE – Persistence paid off in spades for the East Lincoln County Fire District this month as it broke ground on a long-awaited fire station.
Firefighters and board members stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the legislator who helped make it all possible as they dug into the dirt with gold-tipped shovels on the site of the new station during the May 2 groundbreaking.
While Rep. David Gomberg, D- Otis, did not lean into his ceremonial shovel too hard he did lean into chasing down the $4 million that made the project possible.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Gomberg said to those gathered at the site. “Back in 2013 we worked really hard to turn Highway 20 from a slow, twisty, dangerous highway into a straight, fast dangerous highway. And we need this station here to reduce the response times to the accidents that continue to happen on that roadway.
“I’m going to say that in much more simple terms – this facility is going to save lives,” he added. “It’s going to save lives of people here at the coast that are heading east and people in the east that are heading west because we are right in the middle and we’re going to be able to get to them sooner.”
Gomberg led the effort that resulted in the 2021 Legislature allocating $4 million in Oregon Lottery funds for the station. The money became available in 2022.
20 years of history
East Lincoln volunteer fire chief Will Ewing outlined the long and sometimes rutted road dating back decades that eventually paved the way for what will be a four-bay fire station with sleeping quarters.
In 2002, community members from the surrounding valleys began writing petitions for annexation into the fire district in order to regain insurance lost when an insurance agency dropped coverage. The district obliged the annexations and began casting about for a base of operations.
In 2004, Philomath-based Consumers Power Inc. donated the land. But there was still no money for a fire station. In 2015 the district received a $20,000 grant from Starker Forests of Corvallis to help with planning. The district then attempted three bond initiatives — all of which failed, Ewing said.
Years would pass until the district found a receptive ear and champion in Gomberg, said East Lincoln board member Jeff Doyle.
“We worked with other legislators and … they said ‘What a great idea, this is great we’ll help you out’,” Doyle said. “Years go by … and this is the only one in the Legislature who took us seriously and sat down and said ‘Why do you want this so bad?’ And he understood and then took that ball and ran with it.”
But even with money in hand, the district ran into delays in getting started.
“We got delayed and delayed and delayed by the permitting process,” Ewing said. “We had to get conditional-use permit from the county and that took a while. And so we couldn’t do any of the engineering on the building because it would have been out of our pocket if we didn’t get that permit. And then when we did get it we started the engineering which also took a long time. And that just kept snowballing.”
There were also floodplain concerns that needed to be worked through with the Federal Emergency Management Agency — especially since the station is being touted as an inland operating base if a catastrophic earthquake or tsunami hits coastal communities.
Another hiccup has been the cost increase since the Covid pandemic, which has bumped the initial engineering and building cost estimates to complete the station from $3 million to somewhere between $3.9 and $4.2 million, Ewing said.
“We’re shy about a million bucks,” he said. “But we are working on a couple of different ideas for getting that funding. We’re going to get it.”
The builder, Baldwin General Contracting of Albany, expects to complete the station sometime next March.
Inland emergency center
The district, which has a permanent tax base of $1.05 per $1,000 assessed property value, is for the first time asking its 1,888 registered voters to consider adding 39 cents per $1,000 to that with an operations levy in the May 20 special election. But that money is directed for equipment only.
The new station will not only serve the needs of the community and travelers and as a possible base of operations during a catastrophic event, but also as a respite when needed for Oregon Department of Forestry crews and law enforcement, Ewing said.
“It’s really very exciting,” he said. “I want the people on the west side of our district to understand this is as much about them. We are trying to work something out on the west side for response out of the Toledo area because it takes a long time from here.”
The new station, which Ewing called essential and the “orphan that’s been missing for a long time,” will rely on volunteers. And while there were once volunteers who lived in the area, their numbers have declined because of the time it has taken to build a station.
“Our volunteer base will grow but right now we can’t push too hard because we don’t have a home,” Ewing said. “We’re out of the Toledo building temporarily and we’ll see what happens with that. But this will provide longevity and with the sleeping quarters and our firefighters without borders program is going to help a lot out here.
“It’s the theory of once you build it — they will come.”
- Garret Jaros covers the communities of Yachats, Waldport, south Lincoln County and natural resources issues for the Lincoln Chronicle, formerly YachatsNews, and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
