LRFD purchasing property, building next door to Lincoln Fire Hall

The Lincoln Rural Fire District received an anonymous $20,000 grant last week to be used for the purchase of land, which will provide a financial cushion for the district's purchase ofthe property just north of the Lincoln Fire Hall.

LRFD Chairman Bill Frisbee said the District has a signed contract for the purchase of the two lots owned by Chris and Betty Waits. Totaling about eight-tenths of an acre, the properties include the vacant lot adjacent to the Fire Hall, which had long ago been home to the Stoner Store and gas station, and the garage built by John Petek in the 1950's that once housed Chris Waits' repair shop and, for a time, his Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Frisbee said the LRFD expects to close on the property soon, after they receive some necessary documents from Waits.

Frisbee said past LRFD boards have looked at the vacant lot next to the Fire Hall but it never seemed like the right time to pursue it.

Although the property's history as a gas station resulted in petroleum contamination from underground storage tanks, Frisbee said the area has been tested twice in recent years. In 2016, Olympus Technical Services performed confirmation sampling on the property as part of the process to remove it from the list of contaminated sites.

"It's been tested twice that I know of. and given a clean bill of health," Frisbee said.

The LRFD was primarily interested in the lot next to the fire Hall, but that wasn't going to happen unless the deal included both lots, Frisbee explained. However, he said the Waits' were willing to work with the Fire District and made it a very attractive package deal. They were also willing to carry the contract at a better interest rate than the district was likely to get elsewhere.

"His dream was for that to be an arts center, but that didn't really come to fruition," Frisbee said. "His second thought had always been that it makes sense for the fire department to have it."

Frisbee said the property isn't being purchased with taxpayer dollars. Instead the money allocated for the purchase has been earned largely through wildfire fighting and from past Fireman's Balls.

"We all know the end of fire has not hit Lincoln," he said. "There will be fire, so it's a matter of budgeting, and that's what we'll do."

He said the Fire District is making a sizeable down payment on the property and will likely make monthly payments on a five-year contract that's amortized over ten years. Additionally, he said the Waits' made a gift of equity, which is effectively a sizeable donation to the Fire District.

No decisions have yet been made on whether the grant the LRFD received will be used to pay down the principal on the property or as a fund for monthly installment payments.

Under the contract with Waits, the district can make either monthly or annual payments, although Frisbee suspects the trustees will opt for the more palatable monthly option. The agreement also imposes no penalties for paying the property off early.

Frisbee said the LRFD Trustees are aware the land purchase will prompt speculation that the LRFD plans to build a new fire hall, but he said there are currently no plans to do so.

"A few years ago, there was meeting and the statement was made that 'Oh, you just want to spend money to build a new fire hall.' At that time that wasn't the case. At this time, that isn't the case.," he said.

They do however, plan to eventually renovate the arts center building for use as a 'clean space' that will be available for meetings.

"One of the issues with the current hall is that it's where all the turnouts are stored," he said. "You can basically wash one set of turnouts – maybe - at a time. When you have a structure fire, all the residue that's on the turnouts and all that gear ... has been proven to be carcinogenic. To have that stored in a place where we have public meetings, its kind of like playing with fire."

The building will also give them additional space to house some of the equipment currently stored at Station 3, nearly five miles east of Lincoln.

"One of the issues we're dealing with right now is we have firefighters who live west of town, we have firefighters in town, we have no firefighters east of town where we've got equipment stored," Frisbee said. "At our last structure fire, it took time to go out to Station 3, get the equipment and come back in."

Frisbee said the important thing about the property purchase is that it will provide the Fire district with opportunities in the future.

"Equipment keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and longer. It was great 20 years ago. Everything was smaller, but in the fire world we live in today, everything needs to be bigger," he said. "You have to plan. I think the residents of the district expect us to plan, so that when something happens, we as the district and the fire department are prepared and ready to meet those challenges head on."