Out of service: Park Point fire station to close Sunday
June 26, 2012 at 7:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
Come Sunday, the Park Point fire station will cease operations, according to Duluth Fire Chief John Strongitharm. Continue Reading
Out of service: Park Point fire station to close Sunday
25 Comments
STUPID STUPID STUPID- decision- just plain STUPID
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I’d like to see the City donate the firehall and engine to the Park Point Community Club who can organise a “volunteer” fire-fighting force to work in conjunctuion with the city fire department. This volunteer force can also include volunteer EMTs. The firehall and engine should become the responsibility of the community club to maintain and continue to have no property tax paid to the city. This would be a ‘win-win’ for both the city and the park point residents! Think it over before dismissing the idea!
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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There is alot of talk about a Volunteer fire force on park point to handle the closing of the station. My question is, how much do you know about a Volunteer Fire department. You can’t just say OK we are going to have a volunteer fire department. There are many issues that go along with it. A big one is who will be liable when something bad happens. The city takes that responsibility now but if you are volunteer it has to fall on someone.. Another is who will respond. Calls happen at all hours, people work and have lives of there own, the surrounding Volunteer departments can’t find or keep people even with incentives like pay and a retirement and even washing your car for free at the hall, and they have a much larger and younger pool to pick from then just the people on park point. Then there is the issue of training. Just because the side of the rig says volunteer doesn’t mean you just jump in and go. There are requirements that need to be met whether you are paid or volunteer,are the minumums for volunteer a little less, yes, but they are still there. And finally there is the money, who pays for it, the training, hall repair, truck repair, insurance, equipment, fuel, firefighting clothes, the pagers to dispatch with and numerous other things i am sure i don’t know of. Just because it says volunteer on the side of the truck doesn’t mean it is free. Will there be a delay if the bridge is up, yes, will it affect the outcome of the problem, maybe. But what happens when a truck is out on a call and other call comes in in the rest of the city, then what. There is a delay and sometimes it can be a while if it is a fire and the next truck is on the other side of the city. The other blogs talk about the fleecing of the city by the fire department how they cost too much, now they are trying to cut costs and be more efficient and everyone complains about that too. Make up your minds, do you want public safety or not, I for one do, and if you do it takes money to meet the standards that are required. There is alot of talk about redundent services in the city with Gold Cross and the fire department, isn’ t this the same thing, a fire department within a fire department.
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There are volunteer fire departments all over the state in a large number of smaller communities. If there is enough of a demand, it could be a feesable alternative. Just like doctors or employees of any number of service oriented businesses, there are people on-call and available for emergency situations. I would this this idea deserves some serious consideration. They would still have the support from the city, but they would be the first responders in an emergency or if the city services were somehow delayed by the bridge or some other unknown situation. It will happen, don’t say it never will.
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Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
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The city turned a 180 on the Park Point hall. Two years ago they were going to spend a million bucks to improve the hall. Now they are closing it. If they don’t feel Park Point merits a hall then why not look at the Canal Park area. You have huge numbers of people down there for events. And you would still have a decent response time in getting to Park Point. Not sure if consolidating all of your rescue capability in one spot is a such a great thing. Maybe a consultant thinks it would work….sometimes the real world is different.
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I’m new on this subject -but why have I not heard anyone say anything about keeping the fire hall open as a volunteer fire station or is that a thing of the past?
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Because Duluth’s fire union would never, ever, ever allow that.
We’re talking about the same group that kicked two firefighters out of the union because they were volunteer FF’s in the towns they live in.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Since it is no longer a “Duluth” fire station, I suggest that the people of Park Point do whatever they need to do to be safe. It seems to me that keeping the engine and allowing station to remain open to a volunteer team, is a no brainer.
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The silver lining may be that the reduced fire and EMT coverage will probably drive down housing prices significantly on Park Point. This will help the residents with their tax bills and will encourage others to move there and buy up some of those “2 houses for sale on every block” properties due to the reduced value of those properties.
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When the entrance’s to Morgan Park were blocked ,the powers that be were worried about fire and police protection. If that 6000 year old bridge broke, wouldn’t you have the same situation?
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It’s amazing how backwards you can be…
Who in their right mind would give up safety for a minor decrease in taxes? amazing…
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Obviously the Fire Chief. Stupid is as stupid does.
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Here’s a word that needs more understanding, ISOLATED, as in bridge broke no access to Park Point by land. Are the powers that be planning on a fire rig with “floating power” or what?
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again, the brainless at work for this laughable town!
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Again City Hall making decision based on out of townees that have no roots in the community. Right or wrong I believe it happened all too rapidly for the safety of people living and using Park Point for recreation.
As others stated, the world ended when Morgan Park was flooded at entrances, but when others are getting bridged there is no matter. Does Mayor Ness have 100% knowledge the bridge will never get stuck in the upright position? Dang blue bridge breaks daily it seems.
No I do not have the answer, put this should have taken more time. Maybe time has come we start augmenting our full time Fire Dept with local volunteers. I am now at least open for discussion.
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The entire area should have been a city park to begin with. It was foolish to develop it. Blame the developers.
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Shouldn’t those who are complaining be willing to pay an additional assessment to cover the operating costs of maintaining the firehall? This probably seems too simple a solution for PP residents, but if it’s safety that they’re concerned with, how do you put a price on safety?
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whatever……yawn. typical leftist attitude, we want what we want, and we want somebody else to pay for it.
Surely you can come up with something better than hot air depleting the ozone. Hot airAKA gloBULL warming, has never been a cited cause of ozone depletion. just another stoopid liberal talking point that lacks validity.
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Typical right wing response no sense of humor. By the way people breathe out co2 which does harm the ozone layer. Your hate for liberals will consume you.
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giggety, giggety! Quagmire, Have you been paying attention of late? CFC’s (Chlorofluorocarbons) are being blamed for the depletion of the ozone. CO2 is being blamed for the fraud called gloBull warming. You can mix CO2 and O3 all day long and not see any reaction. You did take chemistry didn’t you?
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The “isolated” schtick doesn’t work. People live all over northern Minnesota MILES from fire halls. Doesn’t seem to be a problem for them.
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Strip of land connected by mechanical bridge,not land locked like the rest of MN. It would take a while to drive around Lake Superior and you still couldn’t get to PP even if you did.
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Many habited islands have ferry service. The problem as I see it is Duluth spoiled these people by building them a bridge. It blocks a shipping channel which to me makes no sense.
In GF there is a community on the edge of town that is surrounded by water almost every spring. When the water is up they need to use boats to get to their vehicles, parked on dry land. After years of this happening they decided they wanted a bridge. With no government money available to them they are now building their own bridge, just a single lane but it will do.
The Park Point community needs to step up and take care of themselves. They need to form a committee and decide their own future. They choose to live where they do. There is a price to pay for the view, pay it or move. We can’t afford to coddle people in this country anymore.
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tj be careful, don’t call it a bridge… it is called THE BRIDGE. I like to compare it to the Titanic. The Titanic was said to be unsinkable, THE BRIDGE will never break. They have so much faith in THE BRIDGE nursing homes and hotels have been built and tourists are encouraged to go there to have fun. I like your idea for building a new bridge but it would need to be about a half mile long. Maybe a tunnel would work better that would be bored under the ship canal. I’d be happy with a fire truck on a barge or they could close the Superior entry and build a road from Superior Wisc. to the other end of PP. Unfortunately, that would ruin the hiking trail. This is what’s commonly refered to as a quagmire.
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