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Fire District Wants DuPage Airport Authority to Pay More

Posted on: Wednesday, 6 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

West Chicago Fire Protection District leaders want the DuPage Airport Authority to pay more to keep a fire station located on airport land.

The two sides are close to inking a new, five-year lease for the station at 1700 Powis Road.

But if the fire district can build a new station elsewhere, it can opt out of the new lease with six months' notice.

Monday, the fire protection district put forward three proposals to an airport committee.

The first would keep the station along Powis with firefighters devoted to the airport about 95 percent of the time, with the remaining time used for responding to nearby emergency calls that can't be reached by another unit.

But the district also wants the airport to cover 76 percent of operational costs and salaries, which comes to about $577,000 a year.

The second option would keep fire and rescue crews at the station 100 percent of the time for airport use only.

That option, in which the airport gets its own set of exclusive first responders, would cost the airport $762,000 a year.

The third scenario has the airport paying nothing, but the district would vacate airport land once it could build a new station at Woodland Avenue and Route 59 or at another location.

"We aren't going to stop servicing them; we just won't be doing it from a station on the airport," said Robert Trevarthen, attorney for the fire protection district.

The current airport station was erected in 1980, and the district has a location near downtown West Chicago.

The fire district wants to build two new stations in the next several years to respond to its growing population.

The airport pays about $300,000 each year in property taxes, but the majority goes to local schools. Fire officials see a cost- sharing agreement as an equitable solution.

Fire Chief Ron Ackerman said the department responds to about two calls at the airport each month. But not having an on-site fire station - and the decreased response time associated with it - could alter perception for the state's third-busiest airport behind O'Hare International and Midway.

Trevarthen said the two entities have a "track record of working together" and the proposals were a starting point for future talks.

Airport officials did not take any final action. "We see the value of mutual planning," said David Bird, airport executive director.

Source: Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.

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