The Editor,
To this taxpayer, it’s obvious that placing emergency personnel in harm's way during training is unacceptable. The aging fire training building in Port Coquitlam and its lack of a proper configuration for today’s training needs certainly means a new facility will be needed.
But for each municipality to build a facility and hope that other agencies from other communities will use the facility to offset the cost of a more modern and appropriate structure is shortsighted and naive. The massive duplication of administration and services delivered by the three Tri-City fire departments is wasteful and expensive to the taxpayers of these communities.
Funding freed up from a consolidated Tri-City fire department would more than pay for a complex that would meet the needs of this department for many years. The lack of foresight, willingness to change and fear of losing re-election from negative reaction from powerful fire unions will continue to burden taxpayers in our communities.
The complexity of fires, highrise buildings, hazardous material events, interface events and complex rescues means that our Tri-City departments will need to rely more on assistance from one another as the communities grow and become much more complex.
What we really need in our communities is a tax break. Eliminating the massive duplication with a consolidated fire department would be a start. I predict that not only would a new training facility get built but it would be state of the art, well utilized and sustainably funded.
Geoff Taylor, Port Coquitlam
