Council to weigh facility for Goldsboro Fire Department
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on March 4, 2015 1:46 PM
The city might soon have a new place to train its firefighters.
Goldsboro Fire Chief Gary Whaley and Lisa Johnson, an assistant fire chief in charge of training, presented a plan to construct and to begin operating a training facility for the Goldsboro Fire Department to the Goldsboro City Council Monday evening.
After considering several options, the council came to the consensus that purchasing 12 Conex boxes at $2,200 apiece would be the most viable option.
Mayor Pro-Tem Chuck Allen made a push to allocate the funds right away, but City Manager Scott Stevens blocked the move -- saying it would be better to bring the measure back before the council in a few weeks when the city is further into its fiscal year to ensure the roughly $50,000 in funds would be available.
Regardless of funding, Whaley and Ms. Johnson said the need for a training facility was of dire importance.
"Right now, we're training on the streets, which causes problems because we are limited as to where we can train," Ms. Johnson said. "Under the new regulations, we can no longer simply simulate training exercises. We have to do the real thing. If an exercise calls for cutting a hole in the roof, we have to actually go and cut a hole in the roof."
Whaley said the Conex boxes would allow for a cheap structure to be built that could be used by both the police and fire departments for all their training needs.
The council also discussed where to place the facility, and is leaning toward placing it on Anderson Drive off of Highway 117.
"We actually went out there and drove it today, and we got from this site off of 117 to Berkeley Boulevard in about five minutes -- meaning if a crew is training and gets called away they can get there quickly," Whaley said.
Outside contractors would not be hired to build the facility if the purchase of the boxes is approved, but rather, two fire captains would be sent to a Designing, Constructing, and Operating Container-Based Props Training School in Indianapolis, Ind., at a cost of $1,795 per person.
"If this is approved, it's something we would want to move quickly on before the next round of inspections at the end of 2015 or beginning of 2016," Whaley said.