By Joey Oliver
mlive.com
BAY CITY, Mich. — Moldy furnishings, understaffed fire stations and tales of leaky ceilings dripping sewage into coffee mugs were among the narratives presented to city commissioners by public safety officials trying to detail the state of Bay City Department of Public Safety’s police and fire facilities.
Previously asked to discuss what would need to be done to reopen the recently closed Fire Station 5, Public Safety Director Caleb Rowell and Fire Chief Kurt Corradi spoke Monday, Nov. 25, about longstanding issues at each of the city’s four fire stations.
They also spoke of the state of the city’s law enforcement center, a space shared with the Bay County Sheriff’s Office that also faces its fair share of problems and staffing concerns.
“Our infrastructure has been neglected, to say the least, on both the law enforcement and the fire side of it, because we’ve been trying to preserve personnel for a lot of years,” Rowell said.
“It’s always repairable, but it always comes at a cost. Money is, you know, the object here. You only have so much money to fund personnel and buildings. You got to decide where to put it. That’s what this plan is to put forward, what the best plan is for this city.”
Bay City transitioned from having separate police and fire departments to a combined public safety department after facing a more than $2 million deficit in 2013, Rowell said Monday. And the city has seen a steady decline in staffing for its emergency response departments.
In the years leading up to the transition to the public safety format, Bay City Police Department staffing declined from 88 officers and staff in 2002 to 56 in 2012. The fire department during that timeframe dropped from 60 firefighters and staff to 44.
Today, Bay City’s Public Safety Department with police and fire combined has 80 personnel, 23 of whom are full-time firefighters.
“That’s quite a difference,” Rowell said.
Bay City signed a contract with the county in the late 1970s in which it agreed to pay a portion of maintenance and operations for the law enforcement center. However, one thing that was never hashed out was who pays for improvements on the building.
The current setup places the jail over the public safety offices. Rowell recalled times when he’d walk into his department’s detective bureau and find water pouring into the office, or, even worse, sewage.
Other stories shared by officials Monday included the time an HVAC unit fell through the ceiling. And there was the time a detective’s office flooded, and city employees installed a tarp over his computer and desk to funnel water away from him the next time it leaked.
In 1999, the city began looking into potentially building a new police department, but economic issues caused the idea to be tossed aside as personnel retention took priority.
“It’s getting older, and there have always been issues with it,” Rowell said. “We’re under the impression that, you know, some things that I would consider maintenance issues, they consider infrastructure improvements or things of that nature.
“As of now, we’ve worked with them, they’re working with us, but it’s difficult to determine who fixes what.”
Each of Bay City’s four fire stations also face unique problems. Fire Station 1 needs a boiler replacement that would cost the city upward of six figures, Fire Station 2 has long-lasting PFAS contamination, and Fire Station 4 needs new windows.
Issues at Fire Station 5 have been well documented, with mold and other health issues being so prevalent the department closed the station earlier this year.
No imminent moves are expected, but among potential solutions for the department’s infrastructure issues was a new public safety building, which Rowell suggested would address all infrastructure shortcomings for city law enforcement and east side fire stations.
Rowell estimated a new building and the added personnel needed for it would cost approximately $30 million. Another proposal was a new Fire Station 2, which he admitted would not solve infrastructure issues at other fire stations or at the law enforcement center.
“Another option would be just to live with the law enforcement center the way we are. You know, we survived in there for 20 plus years. It just leaks on us,” he said. “And it’s going to need some improvements eventually. We just have to work it out with the county if that’s the direction we go.”
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