After all of the North Bend Fire Station 87 construction bills were paid, Fire District 38 Commissioners received a report stating that approximately $35,000 of bond funding remained unspent.
Following some deliberation, the three Fire District Board members voted to use those dollars to help buy down the bond debt, due to be paid off in about 17 years.
The voters of Fire District 38 approved the fire station bond three years ago, which covered about 60% of the cost of the facility. The City of North Bend voters also approved a bond in 2011 for the remaining amount needed to build the station.
The relationship between the City of North Bend and Fire District 38 spans many decades, with the sharing of a facility and equipment being the foundation for delivering EMS, fire and rescue services in the Upper Snoqualmie Valley.
The old fire station had safety, health, stability and lack of expansion issues, which caused the North Bend CityCouncil and Fire District 38 Commissioners to propose the $5M+ bond measure to construct a new station for the growing area.
With a couple years of operation in the new station behind them, Eastside Fire & Rescue Fire Chief Lee Soptich commented, “The facility continues to live up to everything we had hoped it would be. Our firefighters and the paramedics from Bellevue are in a safe setting, with space sufficient to efficiently and effectively do their work.”
Eastside Fire & Rescue/North Bend Fire Station 87 opened in the summer of 2013.
