One of the selling points of turning two sunsetting 1/8-cent sales taxes into a permanent 1/4-cent police and fire tax tax in 2009 was the plan to build a new fire station on the west end of town.
Back then, city officials lamented about the deterioration of the now 66-year-old Roy Head Fire Station, which had become infested with termites and had molded ceilings from several bad leaks, along with a variety of other issues.
For 24-hour shifts, the station is where Blytheville firemen sleep, eat and wait on the next time they will put their lives at risk, while trying to save someone's home or business. Now, the city has pumped some $35,000 into the old building since that time to make it more livable.
But building a new station was one of the main reasons all the Council members pushed for the tax, including James Sanders, the current mayor of Blytheville.
"If you agree to put that tax back on and keep it, the immediate use will be to build a new fire station, give the police and firemen that work for you a raise and to buy equipment that both of those departments need, not only to make them more efficient, but to keep them safe," former Blytheville Mayor Barrett Harrison told the Blytheville Rotary Club in January 2009, a month before the special election. "The members of those two departments have very dangerous jobs, very important jobs for all of us, and they need new and better equipment."
Fast forward to Aug. 25, 2011, the closest the city has gotten to a new fire station is a $10,000 empty lot it purchased for the project. The tax passed, but there is still no fire station.
Don't get me wrong, the money has been put to good use. In fact, Blytheville fire chief Mike Carney said he doesn't know what the department would have done without it, especially considering ISO inspectors made a visit this year, keeping Blytheville at a solid 3 rating.
Also, police officers and firemen have received much-deserved raises, and the tax has allowed the departments to meet equipment needs.
According to figures from the city clerk's office, the tax generated $491,008.62 in 2011 and $1,422,522.92 since September 2009, money that has mostly gone toward equipment, from small items to larger ones for both departments.
However, of that, only the $10,000 has been used for the promised fire station that Harrison once projected construction to begin on in January 2010.
The city has tried, unsuccessfully, for grants to build the fire station, and Blytheville continues to seek grants to construct a new fire station across from the Roy Head station.
Obviously, money is the issue.
Former Fire Chief Ivory Diamond once estimated the new station to cost between $2 and 3.5 million, money the city doesn't have at this time without dedicating the police and fire tax to it. Acknowledging he has no decision-making power, Fire Chief Mike Carney floated the idea of a substation in the west end and a substation on the east end, which seems the likely area for potential growth. They would likely cost in the neighborhood of $1 million each, comparable to building one large facility. That seems sensible.
Either way, hopefully, the new city leaders will honor the old regime's promises to voters.
With Blytheville's $3.8 million IRS debt, the fire station is understandably not Sanders' priority.
But it should be on his to-do list, which no doubt is growing longer by the day.
Maybe it won't take nearly a decade to come to fruition like the incomplete Delta Gateway Museum and Greyhound Bus Station projects.
The firemen deserve better.
mbrasfield@blythevillecourier.com