Camas officials delay decision on Station 41 replacement contract

Nearly two years after a consultants’ report showed the Camas-Washougal Fire Department (CWFD)’s downtown Camas-based fire station headquarters, Fire Station 41, would not withstand a major earthquake and should be replaced sooner rather than later, Camas officials are set to consider a contract with a Battle Ground architectural firm that would get the ball rolling on Station 41’s eventual replacement and possibly re-siting.

CWFD Fire Chief Cliff Free explained during the Camas City Council’s July 17 workshop that replacing the CWFD Station 41 headquarters — one of three critical fire station needs noted in an October 2021 report by Mackenzie, an engineering and architectural firm with offices in Vancouver, Portland and Seattle — would eventually require at least 51% voter approval of a bond measure to pay for the station’s rebuilding and possibly relocation away from its current site next to Camas City Hall.

First, however, Free said, the city will need to hire a consultant to help find the best site for the new station and help educate the public about the city’s need for a new fire station headquarters and about the pros and cons of the preferred sites.

Free presented the Council with a contract for roughly $148,000 with the Battle Ground-based Johansson Wing Architects for the first two phases of the four-phase Station 41 replacement project.

The “proposed project is the initial efforts to find a suitable site for a new CWFD Station 41 in the city of Camas, including community outreach, preliminary station programming, preliminary site and station design and eventual bond support services,” Karl Johansson, of Johansson Wing Architects, stated in the introduction of his company’s estimate presented to the Council July 17.

If approved by the Council, the consultants would take on 13 tasks, including the development of two to three “short list” sites that might be suitable for a new Station 41, identifying a preferred site and producing a pros-and-cons list for that preferred site; developing a public outreach plan; hosting in-person and virtual community open houses; coming up with communications materials for social media, the city’s website, fact sheets and mailers to help the community understand the proposed station replacement and preferred site analysis; presenting key findings to city officials; and helping city staff with general support and management through in-person and virtual meetings and check-ins.

Free estimated that this work would be done over the next five months and wrap up by the end of 2023.

“This proposal is … a professional services agreement that will govern the first two phases of this project,” Free told Camas officials during the July 17 workshop. “It will be a four-phase project to replace Station 41. The biggest lynchpin in the middle is a publicly supported bond to support that work, but there is work to be done before …. we can go to the public knowing exactly what we need.”

Officials in the cities of Camas and Washougal are currently trying to nail down how they would like to govern fire services in the future — asking the public to approve a regional fire district seems to the preferred option — but Free said the city would need to replace Station 41 regardless of what happens to the fire department’s governing body.

“There is a question of, ‘why now?’” Free said, “and there are still some questions about governance. Regardless … the city of Camas is still going to need a fire station. Period. There needs to be a place to house emergency services in Camas. It doesn’t matter what the governance structure is — that needs to exist. Similarly, in Washougal, they’re going to need a station that can house (fire and emergency medical services) in Washougal. … We know we have to have a functional station in Washougal funded by Washougal citizens and a functional station in Camas funded by Camas citizens.”

The October 2021 Mackenzie report said Camas should replace Station 41 in the next two to three years. The report also showed that the CWFD Station 43 in Washougal would need to be replaced in the next five years and that Camas would need to build a new fire station within the next decade to meet the needs of the city’s growing population.

In May 2022, then-interim Camas City Administrator Jeff Swanson told Camas City Council members they could not afford to wait any longer to address the fire department’s facility needs.

“When someone tells you you need to replace a fire station in the next two to three years, they mean you need to be moving into a new station in the next two to three years,” Swanson told Camas officials more than one year ago, in May 2022. “We should be well into that process now. We’re a little behind the eight ball in replacing these two stations.”

Questioned about the format of the proposed contract with Johansson Wing Architects, Free said he had designed the contract to be somewhat flexible and dictated by the consultants’ findings.

“This is an open contract by design,” Free said. “Some pieces hinge on findings that have not yet been discovered.”

As an example, Free explained that the city’s public outreach would vary depending on the short list of proposed sites for the future Station 41. If the city were to replace the station on its current site, for instance, that wouldn’t have too much impact on traffic patterns in downtown Camas. However, if the preferred site was in a more residential neighborhood, the public would likely want to know how the new station might impact their daily commutes, neighborhood aesthetics and other possible impacts.

“The amount of (public outreach) will be predicated on the sites we find and what we need to do to bring the community along with us,” Free said.

The fire chief added that some of the tasks included in the proposed contract with Johansson Wing Architects may not be necessary, or there may be additional tasks needed depending on what consultants discover in their quest to find a preferred site for Station 41.

“We don’t know what we don’t know,” Free said. “We’re hoping to find a clear, winning site that meets all of (CWFD’s requirements) … and that it’s in a place that doesn’t require a lot of initial community input.”

Free said he will need consultants to help craft public relations materials to bring to the community to help engage and inform the community.

“I am not a PR person. It is outside my bandwidth and expertise. I’m going to lead the narrative on this, but I’ll need storyboards and tools so people understand the information,” Free said.

“At the end of this, is bond prep,” Free added. “I’m not an expert on how to (reach) 51 percent of our (voters). They’re not all going to come to our open houses. They’re not all going to watch (city council meetings) live or on video. So, a lot of this will be done in the next three months, but then there is a protracted period where we need time to (inform) the entire community on the bond effort.”

Councilwoman Jennifer Senescu — who was appointed to the Council in February 2023, more than a year after the Mackenzie report on the failing fire stations was presented to the Council and months after Swanson told city officials they were behind the eight ball in preparing to replace critical fire department facilities — told Free during the July 17 workshop that she disagreed with parts of his proposal.

“I absolutely agree we need a new (Station 41) home,” Senescu said. “But I disagree about how we’re going about this.”

The councilwoman said she did not understand why the proposed consultant contract included $40,000 for public outreach.

“Let’s find the site, do the project kick-off, get an idea of what we’re doing,” Senescu said, adding that she would then want to wait to reach out to the public until after fire department staff and consultants could “give the public something to look at.”

“I absolutely have faith in you as director of your department, but I want to make sure we’re giving the public something to look at,” Senescu told Free. “I don’t want to sell one side or another on a bond. I want them to see the whole project and then make their own decisions.”

Free responded that he didn’t believe the public outreach included in the contract was trying to sell the public on the bond.

“Our story sells itself,” Free said. “The difference with this is that we have got to tell (the public) that story so they understand. Typically, we get the same five to 10 people who come and address (the Council). I need more than five to 10 people. I need to get 51 percent of the voting populace. To penetrate, so that they have that story when they go to the ballot. I’m not trying to sell them anything, but we need (more) effective tools to educate them than just these meetings.”

Senescu suggested breaking the contract into two phases.

“Maybe breaking off to developing a site and kick-off, then public engagement?” she questioned.

Free said the city could break the contract into two pieces, with the first phase “finding a site we can put our programming on that is advantageous to” other sites and “only then engaging in outreach to make the public aware of this project when we can actually show them the site we have selected for them.”

Senescu then said she would rather not wait until a preferred site is selected to engage the public.

“How about saying, ‘Here are these sites,’ then giving the public the opportunity to review some plausible sites,” Senescu suggested. “How about saying, ‘Here are some benefits, here’s what’s down the road’ … so we give them information when we have the scope of what’s possible?”

Free said that is the intention of the consultant contract he’d presented to the Council.

“That is kind of how it’s set up now,” Free told Senescu. “The public outreach (in the contract) is to say, ‘This is what we’ve drilled down to. This is how it’s going to affect traffic patterns,’ for instance, or all the other things (the proposed station site) might affect. I hear you describing how we’ve set this up.”

Mayor Pro Tem Don Chaney suggested, and the Council agreed, that officials should continue the discussion at the Council’s workshop on Monday, Aug. 7, with the potential to vote on the contract during that night’s Council meeting.