Whitefish gets $650,280 grant

Northwest Montana News Network

The city of Whitefish has received a $650,280 federal grant that will help the Whitefish Fire Department transition to around-the-clock emergency response services.

The SAFER grant - Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response - from the Federal Emergency Management Agency will allow the department to fully staff three fire shifts.

"Congratulations to Jo Ann Dial, Writeworks Inc., as the grant writer and to the staff and elected officials who made this grant happen," City Manager Chuck Stearns told the council at its meeting Monday.

Stearns said he and Fire Chief Tom Kennelly want to move forward quickly to implement 24/7 emergency service. Kennelly is preparing ads to recruit new, full-time firefighter/paramedics, Stearns said.

In the first year, the grant will provide $234,090 of the $446,469 needed to pay for additional personnel to provide 24/7 emergency services.

After that, the amount of federal grant money will decrease by 20 percent per year, reaching zero in the fifth year.

In the fifth year, the city will have to come up with $542,685 to pay for the additional firefighters and ambulance personnel.

Over the five-year period, the grant will amount to $650,280 out of the $2.4 million needed for additional emergency workers.

With the status of the grant unsure for more than a year, the City Council put a 24-mill tax levy on the ballot last summer to pay for the new emergency personnel.

Voters approved the emergency services levy in August.

While funding has been found to help with round-the-clock emergency services, there are growing concerns about financing for the $9.1 million Emergency Services Center the city hopes to build in the Baker Commons subdivision.

Plans were unveiled in October for the 32,656-square-foot building that would be the new home for the city's court, police and fire departments.

The council will get an update on the project at its Jan. 20 meeting.

Financing the building with tax increment financing bonds "will be challenging in the least and may well come at higher-than-desired interest rates," Stearns told the council.

"The problems are led by the credit crisis and the economy, as to be expected, but all tax increment bond sales are 'story bonds,' where one has to tell the tax increment story, the Whitefish story and the prospect for growth in tax increment revenues."

Stearns told the council that bonds could be backed by resort tax revenue or a general obligation bond, but the resort tax would have to be rewritten to allow that. He said he would prefer to keep looking for someone interested in buying tax-exempt bonds.

One funding prospect Stearns is looking at is President-elect Barack Obama's proposed economic stimulus package.

In December, Whitefish presented a list of seven 'ready to go" infrastructure projects to the Montana League of Cities and Towns for inclusion in a statewide list that will be presented to Montana's congressional delegation.

Stearns said he prefers not to submit a "long laundry list" of projects, but rather a 'realistic list of a few ready-to-go projects."

The Emergency Services Center building tops Whitefish's list.

The other six items on the stimulus package list include the $2.3 million Sixth Street to Geddes Avenue street and utility reconstruction project, the $5.3 million downtown street and utility reconstruction project, the $1 million Cow Creek sewer extension project, the $1.1 million water and sewer improvements project for the U.S. 93 West highway reconstruction project, the $1 million Riverside At Whitefish bike path, and a $300,000 match for local funding for initial construction of the A Trail Runs Through It recreation trail.