Groundbreaking Postponed on New Roseville Fire Station
City cites continuing litigation from citizens' group.
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The groundbreaking for Roseville’s new fire station, originally scheduled for June 11, has been postponed.
In its latest weekly news update, the city said Wednesday it is is involved in another round of litigation regarding the manner in which funding for the new fire station was approved.
"The citizen group, Responsible Governance for Roseville (RGR), has filed a petition for review," disagreeing with the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling that backed a district court decision requiring the citizen group to provide a surety bond before proceeding with the court case, the city said.
As a result, construction of the new fire station is on hold until the Minnesota Supreme Court decides whether to grant or deny RGR's petition, the city said. The state's high court is expected to make a decision by late June, the city said.
The latest wrinkle in the fire station saga comes after the Roseville City Council earlier this month approved more than $700,000 in contracts for the construction of the project. But the Council's approval was contingent on whether RGR would file any further appeals.
RGR filed a lawsuit contending the fire station project should be subject to a residents referendum, but the Minnesota Court of Appeals dismissed its r lawsuit in late April.
Not counting the latest appeal, Roseville Fire Chief Tim O’Neill recently said the fire station litigation has resulted already in the department losing five weeks of the construction season on the project.
“The overall goal is to have the building enclosed by November 30,” he said. “That’s important to us to avoid additional heating costs and the weather slowing down the contractors.”
The city intends to build the new $8 million facility just north of the City Hall campus on Lexington Avenue. Plans are for it to be 32,000 to 36,000 square feet and would become the city's only fire station, replacing the three smaller fire station facilities. One of those smaller stations has been closed for several years while the city's original one, Fire station No. 1, was torn down this past winter to make room for the new fire station.
John Kysylyczyn
8:35 am on Thursday, May 31, 2012
The city council only has itself to blame. If they would have paid cash for construction of the building, which would only take a small amount of the city's overall reserves, the project would have been on the road to completion.
When you try to find scam ways of doing things, like calling yourself a port, and then issuing port authority bonds to fix a fire station with a port that is blighted, you are only asking for trouble. The council was warned but instead put on the thickest pair of blinders they could find.
John A. Doe
5:06 pm on Sunday, September 9, 2012
John, why is the city council blaming itself? I believe the citizens of Roseville are happy the Fire Department is getting a new home that they deserve.
John Kysylyczyn
5:28 pm on Sunday, September 9, 2012
Mr. Chicken,
I think you are a little mixed up. The city council complained to high heaven about the citizen group that sued them and how it cost them so much money. The council only has itself to blame for that.
Apparently you were not at the public hearing. The citizens spoke in support of the new fire station. They spoke against the scam funding method. They wanted a vote and they planned on voting yes.
I questioned why borrowing was even needed. If you look in the council packet for Monday, under item 12b,attachment G, staff says we have $12 million sitting in the bank that can be spent on anything. I recall the fire station being proposed was about half of that.
Maybe instead of the council playing games with Port Authorities and citizen groups in court, they could have simply appropriated the funds and it would have been built by now.
Don't be fooled about the support the council gave the fire department. If they really supported the fire department, you would have had a new station a year or two after the city hall renovation project was completed in 2004. All the studies were done. The property north of the library was begging to be built on. The council sat on its back side and did nothing. Then when they finally decided to do something, they resort to game playing that delayed the project even longer.
If I would have been in office, a referendum would have been held in 2006 and the new fire station would have opened in 2007.