From The Mayor's Desk: New Fire Station to Make Community Safer

From the Mayor’s Desk

The Little Fire Station that Will (Make Us All Safer)

By Mayor Paula Dierenfeld

Last Friday, a hundred residents, businesses and community leaders from Johnston and Grimes gathered at 62nd Avenue and 103rd Street and dedicated the new Johnston Fire Station No. 2 and Police Annex. It was a beautiful day. The weather was nearly perfect and we celebrated the fact that residents on Johnston’s west side and Grimes’ east side are safer now that construction of the Fire Station is complete and it is staffed. Following are the remarks I made at the dedication ceremony:

In August of 2011, a referendum was approved by Johnston residents to build a
new satellite Fire Station and Public Safety Building. While the vote in support
of it was overwhelming, the outcome of the election very easily could have been
different had it not been for the hard work of so many people.

A lot of credit for the passage of the referendum goes to the residents that made up the Citizens for A Safe Johnston committee. This dedicated team of residents met regularly and helped develop the story and strategy that convinced our residents to vote in support of the referendum. Many thanks to Jim Hibbs, John Temple, Bill Monroe, Geoff Greenwood, Tom Fey, Peter Flynn, John Jones, Russ Underwood, Brian Meng, Judy Anderson, Jim Carney, Shannon Strickler, and Dennis Jacobs.

Our friends in the business community also contributed to the effort in so many
ways. Thank you, DuPont Pioneer, John Deere Financial Services, Hy-Vee, the
Rasmussen Group and all of the other organizations that stepped forward and
helped get the message out, including the Johnston schools and local churches.

Thanks also to our City Council members, both past and present, and our city staff for their efforts to make the new buildings a reality. Jim Hibbs, Bob Culbert and Jon Kallen were on the City Council when the decision was made to move forward with the referendum. Tom Cope, Gerd Clabaugh, Dave Lindeman, Matt Brown and John Temple are on the council now and have been involved in the decisions related to funding and construction of the buildings. Police Chief Bill Vaughn, Fire Chief Jim Krohse and City Administrator Jim Sanders have been the real soldiers in this effort. They joined me in making the 50-plus presentations to our community prior to the vote and they have kept us focused as the projects have moved forward.

A special thanks also to the residents of Johnston for turning out in such large
numbers and voting in support of the bond referendum. An amazing 82.28%
of the voters in the election voted “Yes” for public safety. Johnston residents
recognized this as a critical need in our community and they turned out in record numbers to support it.

I’m going make three comments about Fire Station Number 2 that I hope will be
your “take aways” from this ceremony today.

The first is that the building you see behind us is very functional. It was designed to support the firefighters and police in providing the best service possible to our residents. It is also attractive but not extravagant by any means. We want our residents to be proud of their public buildings but our priority is and must be the building’s functionality.

Secondly, this is a building that will house firefighters that will provide service to
two communities – Johnston and Grimes. Johnston and Grimes have for years
shared the costs of a fire chief. Now we will share in the cost of the fire fighters
that staff this building. It is one of the best examples of communities sharing
services in the state.

Thirdly, we committed to completing the construction of this building on budget
and on time. And we did just that – and will do the same with the main Public
Safety Building on Merle Hay.

Public safety is the most important service we, as a city, provide to our residents, schools and businesses. We have the best police officers and firefighters around and we equip them well. We now have one of the two facilities they need to do the job for us.