Excitement ignites over proposed Goodyear Fire Resource Management facility

By Delarita Ford
Mail | X: @AzNewsmedia

The Goodyear City Council received an update on development plans for a new 30,000-square-foot Fire Resource Management Facility, which will be on city-owned property, centrally located in proximity to the fleet building.

Providing easy access for the fire crews citywide, the proposed fire resource management facility was discussed during a Sept, 14 council work session where Fire Chief Paul Luizzi and Deputy Fire Chief Tim Wayne gave details about the project’s designing and building schedule and budget.

When Goodyear voters approved a $232 million general obligation bond initiative in November 2023, they authorized $80 million in funding for public safety facilities.

“This is going to combine a lot of things,” said Wayne about all that was planned to go in the building, from a classroom to a kitchen and a room for a mechanic. “We are super excited about this.”

Wayne added the fire department consulted with neighboring fire agencies in Surprise and Glendale to get ideas on how they modeled their facilities.

So far, the Fire Resource Management Facility project is budgeted at $31.14 million and is planned to use the voter-approved bond authorization as its primary funding source.

According to a staff report, design costs are $1.76 million and will be completed by January 2027. Permits are planned to be completed by late spring 2027.

The project’s final budget will be incorporated in to fiscal year 2028 through the annual budget process. Construction, set to begin in fiscal year 2028, will be completed in the summer of 2028.

By completing the building’s design and beginning construction in Fiscal Year 28, the facility is expected to “ensure sustainable operations for the next 20–30 years,” according to the report.

Likewise, Wayne described how the Goodyear Fire Department services the public from its eight fire stations located across the city. Over the next five years, the fire department intends to add two stations to meet the city’s growing public safety needs.

Although the program primarily operates out of its fire stations, the fire resource management program provides logistics support the fire stations by helping facilitate repairs of fire communication equipment, manage all of the equipment and oversees servicing the air bottles that firefighters use in hazardous environments.

“Since 1992, the city of Goodyear and the fire department have expanded from a single fire station to eight, and this growth underscores that facilities, which once met our needs can no longer support the level of service expected over the next two decades,” Wayne stated.

Details were given about how a recent evaluation of the old Fire Station 181 by facilities staff and fire department personnel found that the 34-year-old building is inadequate to sustain the expanding Fire Resource Management Program.

Although every available space within the station has been maximized, continual rapid growth of the program requires a larger, purpose-built facility to support long-term, sustainable operations over the next 20 to 30 years.

Also, the four apparatus bays are full of reserve emergency vehicles and large equipment that cannot be stored in other parts of the facility. Each room in the building has a function and purpose for storing important equipment it was never intended to store.

The need for a climate-controlled environment caused staff to be innovative to find storage for equipment to include emergency medical services equipment, personnel protective equipment and other firefighting equipment, according to the staff report and confirmed by Wayne at the meeting during the presentation.

Goodyear Councilwoman Wally Campbell agreed that the city’s growth from one to eight fire stations has outpaced the capabilities of the 34-year-old building, which is no longer adequate to support the expanding Fire Resource Management Program, and how the station cannot meet long-term operational needs, or provide appropriate climate-controlled storage for essential equipment despite fully using every available space.

“I know this building has been a problem for many, many years. It’s a wonderful time for Goodyear to put everythig together in one building,” Campbell said.

The next city council meeting is tentatively scheduled 5 p.m. Sept. 21.

Delarita Ford can be reached at dford@iniusa.org. Submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.

Delarita Ford
Lead Reporter | Surprise

dford@iniusa.org

Meet Delarita
Delarita Ford originally joined Independent Newspapers Incorporated, now Independent Newsmedia, Inc. USA in 1997, as a general assignment reporter for the Delaware State News daily paper after starting her journalism career in Maryland in 1994, where she honed her skills by writing obituaries, covering community news from births to deaths, education to legislation and more. As a reporter, she has had the opportunity to cover sitting and former U.S. presidential visits in Baltimore, Delaware, and Arizona.

Community: One of the few seasoned journalists who still enjoys covering community events, she can be found with a reporter’s pad taking notes, her phone taking pictures while capturing life’s moments to memorialize them in print for the local newspapers and for the active-adult community where she lives. She maintains a presence with the Black media and the National Association of Black Journalists to encourage peers, socialize, and mentor younger writers.

Education: Life learner who learns from life. Aside from the collegiate education received, she got the best training from on-the-job experience with former editors who went through copy with a red pen and demanded the best writing for hard news and feature stories. 

Random Fact: While a Delaware State News reporter, she could call then Sen. Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, usually late at night if a quote or input was needed for varying topics, including legislation and education.

Hobbies: Adopt rescue dogs and give them a nice home. Continuously read and critique news stories from various platforms.