Yachats Fire Board adds back storage building to new station

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com

The Yachats Rural Fire Protection Board voted unanimously Thursday to build a $358,000 storage building at the back edge of its new fire station under construction on the north edge of Yachats.

The 2,250-square-foot, two-bay building had been cut from plans last fall when the district ran into expensive issues preparing the 6-acre site and re-doing the station’s foundation.

But those problems have been resolved and with $799,000 in reserve and contingency funds available, it decided to go ahead and add the building back in to the project.

“Most of our uncertainties are behind us,” Ed Hallahan told other board members. “The contractors can foresee problems now … we just don’t see that the reserve or contingency is going to be used.”

Voters approved a $7.7 million bond in 2016 to build a new station, moving it from the tsunami zone in downtown Yachats to the back of a long, rectangular site just outside the north city limits. But the district ran into problems with the land when it started building – spending at least $800,000 to move a creek and re-engineer the 10,000-square foot foundation – forcing it to put the storage building on hold and making other changes to save money.

Now that the foundation is done and the building framed and enclosed, DSL Builders of Salem and the district don’t expect any major surprises.

“I am comfortable now,” said Hallahan, the board member most active in monitoring the project with the district’s two administrators.

After adding the storage building, the district would still have $440,000 in reserves and contingency, he said.

The station is scheduled to be completed in December; the storage building would be finished after that.

In other business, the board:

• Approved setting up a basic website where it could post meeting notices, agendas and minutes along with other district information. The district currently posts agendas two days prior to meetings on the door of the main fire station and at the Yachats Post Office. Copies of meeting minutes are available on request only at the station.
• Will have a second negotiation session March 8 with its newly unionized firefighters. The district made its initial offer Feb. 18 to the Newport Chapter of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which Yachats’ firefighters voted to join last year.