“I came in 25 years ago and these were the exact same training facilities that I stepped into,” Boone said of the facility off 122nd and Sandy in Northeast Portland. “We can’t do and operate our mission-critical services without having the support facilities.”
Logistics Chief Bill Goforth said the Portland Fire & Rescue (PF&R) logistics facility in Southeast Portland is also in poor condition and falling apart.
“For example, water intrusion leaks from deteriorating roofs causing mold and rot and sheet rock damage,” said Goforth. “In order for the EMS staff to wash their hands do you have to walk from one building to another building just to find a sink with running water.”
PF&R had to pull a $147 million bond off the May ballot due to lack of community support. City commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who is in charge of the fire bureau, said a recent poll showed voters were not in favor of a bond measure.
“At this moment, our city is in crisis and people are angry and that came across very clearly in a poll,” said Hardesty. “I can tell you in the history of Portland Fire & Rescue, we’ve never seen poll numbers so bad, which is why I made the very difficult decision to not push forward on this bond measure at this time.”
A general obligation bond passed in 1997 to upgrade all 31 fire stations, but that it did not include the bureau’s support facilities. Fire officials stress if funding does not go to those facilities soon, it will have an impact on the public.
“The logistics facility is where we do all the repairs to keep apparatuses responding out of the fire stations, so it has a direct correlation to our emergency response capabilities to the citizens of Portland,” said Goforth.
“We can’t provide the end results and give you the quality and effective performance and take the risk that we do unless we have the facilities and the support,” said Boone.
Hardesty said she’s looking at other options to get the facilities fixed but didn’t have a timeline for when a possible measure would make it onto the ballot.
