By Kaitlyn Klepec
The Pantagraph
NORMAL, Ill. — The Town of Normal and its firefighters’ union are at odds over whether replacing the fire station on College Avenue with one farther east will improve or hinder ambulance and fire coverage for community and whether facilities and staffing are keeping pace with demand.
While the union recommends keeping the current Fire Station No. 2 and instead adding a fourth fire station, town officials say their evolving plan to realign the locations of the three stations is data-driven in light of the national standard for response times, which is within 4½ to 6 minutes.
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In a statement at the end of Monday’s Normal Town Council meeting, council member Kathleen Lorenz called for the council to have a work session to evaluate the town’s decade-old fire station realignment plan in light of the union’s community study that questions it.
“I’ve heard, maybe you all have heard, colleagues, that residents are confused, and frankly, so am I, and I’m here to say we can’t get this wrong,” she said. “I’m going to bring a solution that we hold a dedicated work session before year end. I know that seems urgent, but this is urgent, and we reconcile the two narratives, we put both data sets on the table and determine what’s actually happening. Is everything fine? Or is the house burning down, to use a fire metaphor, or is maybe just a little smoke coming from the top somewhere?”
The new Fire Station No. 2 at the corner of Shepard and Hershey roads is intended to replace the former fire headquarters at College Avenue and Blair Drive as part of a wider plan to realign all three fire stations to make their staffing and locations better match the towns changing geography and population distribution.
The first project was the construction of the Main Street headquarters, which were finished in 2017. The future relocation of Fire Station No. 3 , which is currently at 1200 E. Raab Road , is still under consideration and will be based in part on how the first two relocated stations affect response times.
Normal Firefighters International Association of Fire Fighters Local 2442 recently released what it described as “a comprehensive community needs study that highlights significant challenges facing fire protection and emergency medical services in Normal.”
“We’re trying to do a good thing. It’s about the people. We all got this job for a reason, so we want to see the service being provided adequately,” said union local Vice President Xian Graden.
The study said call volume has increased 83.6% since 2006, going from 4,401 to 8,061 calls annually. The union cites a variety of factors ranging from business and population growth to cuts in other community programs that shift burdens to fire and ambulance services.
In 2006, the Normal Fire Department increased staffing to provide more assistance to the community after Bloomington-Normal’s two hospitals announced private ambulance services were to cease operations, Fire Chief Mick Humer said. That was the last time NPD increased staff, according to the study.
After that, “NFD took over all transports for the town,” Humer said. “We added a third ambulance at Station 3 and hired six people to operate.”
Pacey said there are a “multitude of factors: access to health care, some of the programs that have been cut over the years, results in us seeing more people in their homes, and we still end up being the primary access point for health care for a lot of people.”
The union members also noted an influx of people into the community with growth at Rivian Automotive and Illinois State University.
Although Humer noted Rivian uses a private company for emergency medical assistance on site.
Pacey said that while the town’s actual footprint might not be growing as much with census numbers, the call volume has still grown due to the business and industrial development that has been happening.
“That’s credit to the Town of Normal for making things happen,” Pacey said.
While union members noted “skyrocketing” increases for calls to service, Assistant City Manager Brian Day said while there is a “general increase, (numbers) can fluctuate from year to year.”
Pacey noted the union’s computer-based Geographic Information Science study predicted a 9.8% decrease in incident coverage with the relocation of Station 2, especially in the area of Station No. 2.
The Station No. 2 relocation, which was approved two years ago, will move it from its centrally located address at 1300 E. College Ave. to 2406 Shepard Road. Construction began for the new station in early October.
Instead, Pacey suggested a more updated plan for relocation, noting the current plan is 13 years old. Additionally, a 2008 study by the Normal Fire Department administrative staff advised against relocating all stations without a long-term plan, according to the study.
Union members acknowledged additional fire and emergency medical assistance is needed in the area of the new station, but they say closing the current Station No. 2 will leave densely populated neighborhoods with older, young and otherwise at-risk residents at risk.
Union members are asking the town to invest in a fourth station, allowing first responders to maintain the second station at its current location while adding an additional station to accommodate increasing needs on the south side of Normal.
“We just feel that it would be a better move to keep the current station and provide adequate services for everybody throughout town,” Pacey said.
However, town officials disagreed, noting that according to Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) data and trial runs at various times of day, the department will still be able to respond within its current ISO 2 scoring response time.
Rating a 2 on the 10-point Insurance Services Offices scale means Normal has a high level of fire protection. Insurance companies factor ISO scores into insurance premiums, and the lower the score, the lower the lower rates.
Assistant City Manager Jenny Keigher said ISO 2 puts Normal in the top 1% of fire departments nationwide, “that’s a pretty exceptionally high bar,” Keigher said.
Pacey said he believes the town will need a fourth fire station in the next 10 years, based on the data.
“Again, I go back to our calls for service. I think we, as responsible union leaders, want to try to address that the best we can, and bring them up to the Town of Normal so they can address it as well,” Pacey said.
“I think the calls for service is the easiest number to digest public because, as you know, it’s complicated, right? The study we performed is in depth, so there’s a lot of numbers to support, they’re not just feelings, its data,” Graden said.
“We’re committing to serving our community, collaborating with the Town of Normal and our Fire Administration and finding a resolution to the areas we feel we’ve identified as being issues,” Pacey said.
Day said the town will acknowledge the union’s GIS study but will couple it with the CAD data, as well as testing run times.
Town leaders agreed that public safety is at the top of their concern.
“The town in general is always trying to do things a little bit better than we do today. Over the course of the past several years, we have been really intentionally leveraging technology that’s part of our data informed decision making. I think we’re positioned right now and really, really advantageous and favorable stock to deliver really high quality fire response services,” Keigher said.
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