Salinas city council approves Measure V funding for police, fire departments
Salinas city councilmembers approved Measure V funding Tuesday night, which will benefit the city’s police and fire departments.
Measure V, established in 2005, puts money into the city’s general fund every year to be doled out to different city departments.
This year, $240,000 will go toward new police patrol cars and another $75,000 will help repair a needed training facility for firefighters.
“It was a huge asset and not having that has been a big detriment,” said firefighter Ryan Alexander of the facility, which needs major improvements.
Alexander, who has been a firefighter for three years, says he’s among the last Salinas firefighters out of the academy to use this fire training tower.
“It is kind of like a big jungle gym , you know it is a training facility, but again it’s you know acquiring all that knowledge, refreshing all that knowledge,” said Alexander.
The tower is old, its walls black – that shouldn’t be the case, said Salinas Fire Captain Cary Lesch.
“The tower allows us to do hose progression, fire attack, ladder operations, different rescue systems, repelling, ventilation,” said Lesch.
Those are all essential training tools that have been lost while the tower has been out of commission.
The fire department says the building is a now a safety hazard– in May, a structural engineer declared it unsafe. Still, it’s an asset nonetheless for other departments in Monterey County and fire crews fresh out of the academy..
Normally, they would practice on it two to three times a month, but lately they’ve had to ask residents to let them use their roofs to practice on.
“Going out into the community, asking them to use their roof you know is only goes so far,” said Alexander. “It’s nice to be able to use our tower.”
The Measure V funding should bring in $50,000 dollars for all the repairs–a prospect Alexander is pumped for.
“It’s going to be huge,” he said. “I can’t wait.”
The hope is to have this tower ready to go by mid October.
