Pabst Fire Station No. 2 open house Thursday

Posted: Aug. 25, 2010

City of Oconomowoc — The public is invited to see Pabst Fire Station No. 2 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. tonight.

The city took over construction of the station - which will be shared by Summit and the city - last year. Summit Administrator Henry Elling said in 2007 that the Summit Fire District was running out of space at its Town Hall station. Continued growth in the Oconomowoc area also bolsters the need for the facility. The new Pabst Farms fire station was planned to coincide with the completion of the Aurora Medical Center. The station will house Summit fire personnel and equipment and serve as a second fire station for the city.

Calls for fire and emergency medical help have increased dramatically 2005 and 2008, according to the annual report released by City of Oconomowoc Fire Department. According to the report, there were 1,581 requests in 2005, which included 1,272 for emergency medical services and 309 for fire protection. In 2008, those numbers jumped to a total of 1,887 combined, an average of 5.16 calls per day, with 431 for fire and 1,456 for medical help.

"The area is growing and, as it does, there are more requests for service and there's also a heavy elderly population," explained Deputy Chief Glenn Leidel. "Right now, between the three buildings at Shorehaven, along with Wilkinson Woods and Wilkinson Manor and to a lesser degree the two senior apartment units across from the fire station, make up roughly half of our EMS responses annually." Leidel said the activity is a natural result of a growing community.

And even though Village of Summit Fire Department will move its headquarters to the Pabst Firehouse, the new digs does not change its call to duty, Summit Fire Chief Milt Wegner emphasized.

Matt Dinnauer, Fire Commissioner of Summit, said the municipality has contracted a 50-year lease to share the facility with the City of Oconomowoc Fire Department.

"We are currently working with the mayor and the common council on trying to get a merger agreement between the two departments but we want the residents of the Summit Fire Department to know that while this merger is going on, we're still here to provide the same level of service that we have for the last 40 years," the Commissioner said in a previous interview.

"Just because we're moving to a new facility, does not mean they will receive a lesser amount of service," Dinnauer said.

Dinnauer said Summit has been working on a merger agreement for three years with the city.

"It's to the point now where it's really at the politician level where they are trying to figure out equalized value between the communities that would be involved and a redistricting of the fire district," he added.

Determining the proper funding formula to make the merger fair and equitable is one of the key issues to resolve in the crafting of the merger agreement.

Interim Summit Village President Len Susa said the merger is the next step for the two departments, an effort of which he said he is in favor.

"It is a work in progress," said Don Wiemer, administrator for the Village of Oconomowoc Lake and chairman of Summit Fire District Commission.

Wegner said there have long been cooperative arrangements between the town and the city.

"We have been sharing services with Oconomowoc for the past five years with what happens to be a 3,500-gallon tender (tanker) that we share with Oconomowoc. It's the Town of Summit's vehicle that's shared with the city. There's other equipment that we share. We also share our training with Oconomowoc which we have worked with for many years," he said.

Pabst FD Facts

Pabst Farms officials submitted this data on the new fire station:

• The station is 14,021 square feet

• Construction began in September 2009 and was completed this month.

• General Contractor: Miron Construction Co. Inc.; Architect: Plunkett Raysich Architects

• Cost: $2.58 million. $2 million provided by Pabst Farms, approximately $580,000 provided by the City of

Oconomowoc

• Built to be a shared facility between the City of Oconomowoc Fire Department and the

Village of Summit Fire Department

• Serves as the Village of Summit's only fire facility and the City of Oconomowoc's second

facility

• Houses three full-time City of Oconomowoc Fire Department staff members - the deputy chief and

two firefighters - along with volunteers from Oconomowoc and Summit, the latter being

an all-volunteer fire department

• Houses eight pieces of firefighting apparatus and a City of Oconomowoc ambulance

• Designed with "green" in mind - features built-in rain barrels, solar panels on the roof to

provide water heating