'Investing in public safety'

It’s a new world for emergency services in the Flathead Valley.

Emergency-services agencies across the valley are benefiting from new facilities, headlined by this week’s opening of the new 911 Center in northwest Kalispell.

The new center consolidates four separate dispatch centers into one facility, houses the new emergency operations headquarters for Flathead County and is a depot for county emergency equipment.

On Wednesday morning, dispatchers will take the first calls at the new center, heralding a leap into the future for emergency communications in the Flathead Valley.

Whitefish residents can be proud of the handsome 32,656-square-foot Emergency Services Center that has just been completed in Baker Commons.

The Whitefish Fire Department has long needed a bigger facility and this center will serve the resort town well for decades to come. The extra space will nicely accommodate the extra firefighters that came on board when Whitefish switched to around-the-clock fire and ambulance service. The community approved a new tax for the expanded service in August 2008.

The $5.3 million center, built with tax-increment financing bonds, also will be home to Whitefish Municipal Court and the Police Department.

LAKESIDE also is in the throes of getting better emergency-services facilities with a new ambulance building for the Lakeside Quick Response Unit.

Longtime Lakeside residents Al and Cora Luna last year donated two acres of land to the Lakeside QRU. The new ambulance hall will have three garage bays to house the current ambulance and provide space for two more to accommodate future growth in that resort community. There also will be overnight quarters for staff and meeting space for the community.

Add to these the Evergreen Fire Rescue station that opened early this year and the Bigfork Fire Department’s new training facility that opened on Saturday.

The many improvements that have been made or are in the works for emergency services in Flathead County shows how much our communities are willing to invest in public safety. In the end, it raises the quality of life here for all of us.