Good morning. We'll get started at 10 o'clock or right at it. So we'll get going. I just want to say
thank you for coming. This is an exciting day for our department. The chance to open up this building
that we've got here that has been a long time coming and pretty excited just to have the chance to get
all of our stuff and all of our equipment under one roof. And so it's pretty neat. I want to thank the
mayor. She gave us this opportunity about three and a half years ago
spend this uh bond money to get where we're at today and we're pretty we want to thank her we'll thank
the council for their support Weddle Brothers who have been the contractors on all three of these projects
uh Martin Riley who has designed them done a great job uh Chief Litwin who has been the driving force
on our side as far as keeping track of the funding and work over Chief Zeeks
Tiny Chief Drescher, Captain Hinkel, and Captain Blackwell, who've been instrumental in getting this
building up and running. And I can say it's pretty exciting where we're at. This is kind of the final
project of four. Started off with the remodel of station one, and then the remodel of station three,
and then us moving to Showers West. And so this is the conclusion of all those projects, culminating
in this building opening up today. So with that, I'll turn it over to the mayor.
Thank you. It's a big day for public safety in Bloomington and a great moment for the city. I want to
start by acknowledging something that doesn't always get acknowledged and we don't always get to say
in city government. This project was done on time and in local government that is sometimes remarkable.
It's a big, big deal. And when we talk about public safety, we frequently think about the moment that
we each call 911. And we don't always see the moments that come before that, that allow our people to
be ready to respond to that call. The training, the preparation, adequate
countless hours that make those moments of response possible. Last year alone, our firefighters logged
more than 48,000 hours of training. That's an extraordinary commitment to being ready when Bloomington
needs them. And that commitment deserves facilities that support it. Just as importantly,
And because our firefighters show up for Bloomington every day, our responsibility as a city is to show
up for them as well.
Chief of Police who is here, your turn is next.
and I'm so sad that I had to go after the mayor because it's a hard act to follow but I want to say
a couple of things before I got to be on the City Council I had the honor of serving on the Public Safety
Board for several years and if any of you ever been to the Public Safety Board you know that really
it's just the board where we listen to commendations about how great our firefighters are right to the
extent that one time I had to submit a commendation just so that the
least could get a pat on the back too because you know every day it was commendation after commendation
after commendation after commendation to be clear we have the best fire department in the state of Indiana
and it is because of all of you the service that you do that is not an overstatement but I'm so grateful
for the leadership of this city this administration thank you mayor and
Thank you, Deputy Mayor Gretchen Knapp. Thank you also to the incredible leaders of your union who have
fought now for several years. I mean, beyond just the funding that happened to make sure that this actually
happened. And we talked about it happening on time. It's because we all work together to get it there
on time. So I'm so grateful also to my incredible colleagues on the city council. Thank you so much.
When we work in unison, anything is possible.
And I'll say, adding to what the mayor said, as though it is hard to do, that now our focus must also
be on ensuring not only that you're the best prepared, but also that you have the best quality of life
while serving this city. Because you do so much for each and every one of us in ways that we don't even
have to think about it, right? The reality is that a good fire department means that we're not thinking
about it a whole lot because you're all doing your jobs in silent service.
But we also want to make sure then that on the day-to-day basis that you are working and serving this
community and one another, that we're able to support you in every way, shape, and form. And so just
again, so grateful to be here for the opening of this magnificent facility. Thank you, Chief Kerr, for
your leadership. Thank you all for being here. And we look forward to the next one, Chief DeKalb. Thank you.
as we like for the firefighters who are here to come up and line up on both sides and grab the hose,
along with the council members that are here, join in. The mayor and council member Sari will uncouple
the hose so that we can go into our new building.
Alright, ready? Alright, ready? Go ahead.
One great thing is if you have somebody come here to work on it, they can come here and we don't have
to build this up. They can come here, tear them apart in our own bay and not have to be working outside
in whatever way. So it makes a huge difference. Our ladder truck will fit in here. We'll have a spare
ladder truck once we get one. We just proved that tonight. So now that we have it, we'll have a spare
that will come in here as well. So this is a huge improvement over what we had. When you step this way,
if you see down here, we talked about cancer.
We have beer extractors on that end.
And so as the crews have stuff during the night or on weekends when nobody's here, they can come down
into the building, go inside and restock what they need on their streets and then go back to service.
This is just a work room. We do our own SCBA and gas detector repairs here. And so they have a place
where they can now repair all this stuff.
So as you come in here, some of the exciting parts is we actually have now what we're going to call
a recruit room. So that they can, uh, we can, when we have new recruits and we've been doing this joint
academy, uh, with Monroe fire. So they can actually have, once they get started, they can set all their
stuff up and we don't have to bother them as we continue to do training for the rest of the department.
You'll see when you do the rest, if you walk through, there's a door that goes out into the bay. They're
actually going to have a dedicated engine. And since we're so close to our tower, we can actually talk
about it in the classroom here.
They can go out and get on the engine, drive right down to the tower, and be able to train on what they've
just talked about without having to shuttle in bands across town. Behind you in the dark area where
the light will come on is a huge locker room with showers and all that stuff where they can work out,
change clothes, and shower afterwards. And so the individuals that work down here are still
sworn firefighters, and part of their is they have to work out an hour a day to meet our standard. And
so this gives them an opportunity to still do that and not have to leave here to go to different stations
to do that.
We do have a full kitchen. And then we come this way. We can go in there. We'll just make a circle.
This is the main classroom for all our department as we go ahead and train in here. But what I want
to point out, as we built it, thinking about what happened at station one with the flood and then we
had to find a building, we actually built four dorm rooms in here. So if something happens to another
station, we can actually bring a crew down here and they have a living facility. They can operate out
of this station in an emergency.
Before we have a building, there's a wall in the middle, we can divide this off and have two separate
classrooms. The classroom we have was just big enough we could get about a half a shift in. So it makes
it pretty nice to be able to get away every time.