Monument Fire District Town Hall, April 18 – Proposed training center plans revealed

By Natalie Barszcz

**Above**: A computer-generated depiction of the proposed Station 1 training tower. *Graphic courtesy of MFD.*

At the Monument Fire District Station 1 proposed training center informational meeting on April 18, about 15 residents attended in person with a few attending via Zoom.

Fire Chief Andy Kovacs welcomed the residents and said he and his staff would give a short PowerPoint presentation on the proposed training center and answer questions.

Division Chief of Administration Jamey Bumgarner presented the district background and said:

The original Station 1 was built in the early 1980s, and the current station was built in the early 2000s. The district began with an all-volunteer firefighting force with administration offices at the same location.
In 2019, a remodel design process began to turn Station 1 into a modern facility, however architects realized the existing site would not be big enough for the design, because the setbacks were insufficient.
The district asked the adjacent landowner if additional footage could be purchased; the owner agreed and offered the district the entire property of about 15 acres. The district purchased the land for about $390,000 in 2020. The remodel began May 29, 2021, and was completed in fall 2021.
Before obtaining the additional acreage, the district hired Emergency Services Consulting International (ESCI) to develop a master plan for the district. Upon its completion in spring 2019, the plan recommended the district increase the training facilities, because the entire district only had one training room.
Since 2021, the district has considered two other options for a training center: a small share of a parcel off Synthes Avenue, where the Town of Monument (TOM) had earmarked 7 acres for the Public Works Department, and 2 acres of land at Terrazzo Drive and Baptist Road. Both options were insufficient for a training tower and ruled out.

Note: The 2019 Master Plan can be found under “Transparency” at www.monumentfire.org.

Kovacs said when he arrived in January 2021 he identified the need for a five-year strategic plan, (available at www.monumentfire.org) developed with an internal stakeholder assessment, with all of the employees completing a multi-question survey to identify the organization’s weaknesses and strengths—called a swat analysis. Community workshops were held and participants answered the same questions, and the feedback was coupled with the master plan to develop a strategic plan. The strategic plan has translated into the pursuit of agency accreditation, whereby the district continually looks internally to identify the agency’s strengths and weaknesses.

The data collection has been a heavy lift for the past year and a half for staff, and an external peer assessment team is expected to assess the district in fall 2024 or spring 2025. The district’s strategic plan, standards of cover, and community risk assessment will be scrutinized by the team as it evaluates the district’s processes, programs, and call response times before making recommendations to improve the district. The district will then find ways to implement those recommendations. Only 300 fire districts within the U.S. have achieved agency accreditation, and the district thought it was important to be a progressive, world-class fire department, said Kovacs.

Kovacs said the district typically utilizes public and private property to complete training, such as Monument Marketplace, but asphalt has been damaged in the past due to heavy apparatus, and the district used insurance to make those repairs. Staff train during duty hours 95% of the time with about 5% of staff attending educational opportunities out of the district. Staff also use neighboring facilities for training such as:

Colorado Springs Fire Department (CSFD), a 28-minute drive, traffic permitting, but CSFD has 500 firefighters to train and needs a second training center. Access is at the mercy of CSFD, and the facility is closed for renovation.
Black Forest Fire/Rescue Protection District (BFFRPD), a 22-minute drive, class-A facility that burns combustible materials in Conex containers. The proposed district training site would include theatrical smoke and LED light boards, no odor from smoke and only organic and environmentally friendly materials used during a simulated fire.
The Air Force Academy (AFA), a 20-minute drive, also a class-A facility inside a concrete structure, but does not have the nuanced training facility the district is proposing and with military bases, access is limited.

Leaving the district to complete training has its drawbacks, with limited slots available and reserved slots subject to cancellations, long travel times taking apparatus and firefighters out of the district make a logistical effort to respond back to district calls. He said he would not be comfortable in the future explaining to the public why a response took too long due to personnel attending training out of district, said Kovacs.

On the proposed training center site, the district is also considering a workshop to avoid travelling to its apparatus vendor Front Range Fire Apparatus (FRFA), located in Frederick-Firestone. Having an onsite FRFA workshop would reduce overtime and fuel costs (a typical engine gets 3-4 miles per gallon), and avoid building a workshop and hiring mechanics, and district crews would no longer have to travel through the Denver Metro area for maintenance, said Kovacs.

Kovacs said the district’s current Insurance Services Office (ISO) score (used by insurance companies to assess fire risk) is 15.40 out of a 35 score. By creating a training center, storage facilities and a maintenance workshop, the district could achieve a lower accreditation score and reduce homeowners’ and commercial insurance rates. Training center site development would include: a warehouse, a training building, auto extrication area, confined space training, wildland fire training, drafting/pump testing, and classrooms/offices for additional administrative staff. A ventilation roof prop structure will be included in the proposed training tower, and although CSFD recently added a ventilation roof prop structure into the CSFD training center, no other training facility within the region has ventilation props.

Noise requirements have been met by the town and El Paso County and would be less than what is experienced from Highway 105 and from the Burlington Northern Sante Fe trains passing through. Operations would not be held overnight. Water run/off contamination will be addressed, and an engineered retention pond will be incorporated for cleaning, before being released into the ground. No PFAS firefighting foam will be used for training. There will be no light pollution and visual aesthetics such as berms, trees, and natural landscaping will be incorporated, with considerable setbacks and easement. There will be no bond or raising of taxes to develop the site, and that includes other projects throughout the district. Instead, the district will use existing funds in a phased approach over the next few years, depending on available revenue. The district has minimized debt and operates in a fiscally responsible manner, Kovacs said, but there is a need to prepare highly trained firefighters disciplined in all-risk types of training within the district. There will be consideration to the neighbors in a phased in development, said Kovacs.

The executive staff received questions and concerns from several residents; they were answered as follows:

Battalion Chief of Training and EMS Shannon Balvanz said to achieve accreditation, the district needs at least a three-story facility, to pull hoses, smoke up rooms, and complete all the core training. The tower will not just be about live fire training, but the district cannot keep travelling to Colorado Springs, and even the CSFD staff do not get enough access to their own training facility.

Kovacs said the district employs 70 firefighters, and like-size districts offer the same level of training to their firefighters in similar training towers. The ESCI study determined that northern El Paso County needed to do a better job regionalizing training, and the center would give opportunities to partner agencies, such as Palmer Lake Fire Department, Larkspur Fire Department, BFFRPD, and others. Regional partner agencies would train together, as they respond with each other to the same incidents, and everyone becomes proficient at working together. Although offering the facility to other districts would be fee based, it is not a money maker and will keep costs neutral and help maintain the facility. There is an opportunity to offer a state-of-the-art facility, and Monument Police Department Chief Patrick Regan sees the value and is interested in using the facility for police training, he said.

Kovacs said the district is in the early phase of planning, and it budgeted $2.4 million this year. Funds will be used for the noise study, a soil study, and a planned unit development amendment, and the district will undergo a design phase with architects. Any unspent funds will be used for the next phase.

Bumgarner said the planning process with the TOM is expected to take about 18 months, and the district will begin the project when the process is completed.

Balvanz said the tower structure is estimated to cost $1 million.

Kovacs said the district would be committed to a lifelong process of being introspective to find ways to benefit the community, evaluating processes annually, and finding deficiencies and ways to provide better service. The district is doing the best it can training firefighters with what is available within the region, but the accreditation process also evaluates infrastructure deficiencies.

Bumgarner said as the district can constantly lower the ISO rating, everyone will see some reduction in their rates at some point as the Fire Department becomes more efficient. Although some agencies will state it has no bearing, the department is held to ISO standards whether some insurance companies honor the rating or not, but some companies are canceling homeowners’ insurance in the wildland urban interface areas.

Division Chief of Community Risk Reduction Jonathan Bradley said the response time for an initial unit is about six 1/2 minutes for the first unit, depending on urban or rural locations. The entire effective responsive team will ideally be there within 10 to 12 minutes, and depending on the call type, dispatch will determine the number of units and people needed, which relates to first alarm, second alarm, third alarm, and so on. If units are missing, the computer-aided dispatch will send additional units from other districts, but not only are those farther away, they are on a different dispatch system. Districts can shift around and cover each other, but the more that happens, coverage is lost in other districts, and out of district units cannot meet the standard response time, he said.

Bradley also said primary education at the firefighter and paramedic academies is designed for constant repetitions, but without regular repetitive training how can we measure skills, and when residents call will staff be up to task. Training exists in the former Chili’s parking lot until it is no longer available, however the vast majority of call volume is medical, and the only facility is the training room. The district receives fantastic primary medical training from paramedic partners, but the district is not set up for that training. The tower would also be used for medic training, another reason to not use combustible materials.

Bumgarner said the district received its second three-story apartment complex and more are coming, but the district needs to practice retrieving patients from third-floor structures. Lowering ISO ratings may not affect homeowners’ insurance, but it will affect commercial properties and help across the board.

Donald Wescott Fire Protection District board President Mark Gunderman said the return on the investment makes sense with the district growth. As an insurance agent for a major company, Gunderman said insurance companies do look at ISO ratings, but the risk is increasing and homeowners’ insurance will continue to go up due to risk and material costs. The ISO rate will increase for the district, but what would have been a few hundred dollars’ decrease appears to be wiped out due to the risk assessment and costs increases, said Gunderman.

Former law enforcement officer/resident Steven Phillips asked if staffing needs are being met for the growth of the district and how many firefighters are close to retirement, and said the number one need for emergency services is training. As a Monument resident for 24 years, he said the dynamics have changed in the last few years, with large warehouses presenting a totally different type of fire. Adding a training center is commendable without a tax increase, said Phillips.

Bradley said the district has not yet met staffing needs and minimum daily staffing per suppression unit is three, but the district is evaluating moving to four. Many of the firefighters are young, but a significant number of staff are five years away from retirement. Denver West Metro has grown so much it cannot train the district firefighters, and CSFD is not accepting outside recruits in 2024, so the district partnered with Pikes Peak State College and BFFRPD to create a combined fire academy last fall.

A few residents raised concern about the voter-approved mill levy increase, noting the district had not included a proposed training facility in the ballot wording, and would the mill levy decrease.

Kovacs said the district relies heavily on property tax revenue and would not be able to operate without it. This November a number of ballot issues will have a direct impact on district funding, but the voter-approved 2017 November ballot measure increasing the district’s mill levy for 2018 was to provide competitive salaries to retain staff and provide enough capital improvement funding to upgrade outdated equipment, replace and maintain ageing apparatus, and upgrade the stations. See http://www.ocn.me/v17n4.htm#tlmfpd and http://www.ocn.me/v17n8.htm#tlmfpd.

At about an hour and 19 minutes into the meeting, an unidentified Zoom member repeatedly interrupted, yelling comments in opposition to the development of the training center and suggested funding be spent on firefighters.

Bradley responded, stating the cost of the training center may sound like a big number on the surface, but the district will not be building every year, and the facility is unlikely to need upgrading for about 40 years. It takes a lot of time for staff to rotate through training, said Bradley.

Note: The district has nine firefighter recruits graduating on May 3 and two firefighters in paramedic school. The district completed a remodel of Station 5, expanding its accommodations, is undergoing a similar remodel at Station 4, and upon completion, plans to remodel Sation 2. The Station 3 rebuild is progressing for a planned 2027 completion. See MFD article on page 15.

The meeting adjourned at 8 p.m.

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Meetings are usually held on the fourth Wednesday of the month. The next regular meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 22 at 6:30 p.m. at Station 1, 18650 Highway 105. For Zoom meeting instructions, agendas, minutes, and updates, visit www.monumentfire.org or contact Director of Administration Jennifer Martin at 719-484-9011.

Natalie Barszcz can be reached at nataliebarszcz@ocn.me.

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