Pueblo West Fire Chief Brian Caserta is hoping for a favorable community poll and a November ballot issue that will help his department construct Station 2 and improve response time to the southwest portion of Pueblo West.

Now that the state legislature has paved the way for metropolitan districts to levy a sales tax for the purpose of funding fire protection, Caserta argued his case to the metro district board last week, outlining the need to for a staging area that will help the department make a “reduction in the response time of anywhere from 8 to 15 minutes down to 2 to 8 minutes,” he said.

The current Fire Station 2, built in the 1970s is a little garage with a bathroom.

“We’ve been working on replacing this since 2013 due to the increase in call volume,” Caserta explained.

Calls to southwest Pueblo West have gone from 325 in 2014 to 382 in 2017 and 377 in 2018. Caserta said he would like to see the new station built at Industry and South McCulloch, about a block from Katmando’s General Store at 607 S. McCulloch.

The station would feature four bedrooms, restrooms and garage space for four fire trucks. It would be smaller than both Station 1 and Station 3. Two conceptual designs have the station at 6,395 square feet or a slightly larger 6,779 square feet and estimated construction cost would be between $1.4 and $2 million plus $900,000 to $925,000 annually to staff the station.

There is a clear need, Caserta said, based on a series of events that hit the department hard last Tuesday.

“We had three calls in 22 minutes - that is scary,” he said.

On one of the calls the department could not respond, so the AMR Ambulance crew was on its own.

“I don’t like not being able to respond,” Caserta said.

He also indicated, “it takes less than 5 minutes for a fire to completely engulf most homes so getting an early knock down on a fire is very, very important,” he said.

He said a voter approved sales tax would be dedicated strictly to the fire department and “the funds will be used wisely.”

Caserta said the sales tax likely would be less painful on the pocketbook than the homeowners insurance costs based on the Insurance Service Organization’s rating for homes in the area.

“Some people have been dropped by their insurance and have had to go to other insurance,” Caserta explained.

“My ISO rating went from a 10 to a 4 and that is a considerable savings,” said Lew Quigley, a former metro district board member.

“This community really needs to find a way to fund it and face this,” said Barbara Bernard, a PuebloWest resident who also served on the board.

Metro District Board President Terry Zupan said she is a very strong proponent of the new fire station.

“People on the other side of this community don’t get the fire protection they deserve and we still owe them that. The community has grown substantially, Zupan said.

Caserta said if a ballot issue is approved, the department would like to get the ball rolling in January by sending out a request for proposals from builders.

tharmon@chieftain.com

Twitter: @tracywumps