Union City rents out closed fire station
Building leased to ambulance contractor to enhance public safety, relieve city of $3.2M annual cost burden
UNION CITY >> Hoping to ease some residents’ fears that their safety could be at risk during a medical emergency, Union City officials have signed a lease agreement to rent out the city’s shuttered Fire Station 30 building to Alameda
County’s ambulance contractor, Falck.
Falck will use the building as a substation for ambulance operations, though ambulances that are eventually stationed there will still serve the entire county, not just Union City. The substation also will serve as a “comfort station” where medical technicians can use the restroom, eat and take breaks, city staff said.
The lease will last for three years, for the price of one dollar per year. Falck began its tenancy at the beginning of this month.
Falck also eventually will use the station as a community center where the contractor can offer free classes for the community “focused on safety, health, education, and wellness,” according to a city statement.
City Manager Joan Malloy said the lease agreement is not a “moneymaking proposition” but is a “beneficial partnership” for the city and Falck.
“They will be managing and taking care of the facility, as well as providing better service for the community in this area of the county, and providing educational opportunities
for the community, which would be free of charge,” she said at a council meeting last month.
By late 2020 or early 2021, Falck also plans to use the station “to house and deploy the newly created mental health Community Assessment and Transport Teams,” or CATT, a county program in which teams made up of mental health workers and EMTs respond when people are having a mental crisis or substance abuse problems.
The station, at 35000
Eastin Ct., lies near the southwestern tip of Union City.
It has been without Alameda County Fire Department firefighters and paramedics since the City Council closed it in January, claiming it was “underutilized” and a cost burden to the cash-strapped city.
The city said the fire station handled two or fewer calls per day and cost the city around $3.2 million annually to operate and staff.
Fire officials were strongly opposed to the
closure, saying it could affect safety when extra resources were needed to properly fight fires in other parts of the city, and possibly slow down medical response times.
After it shuttered, the firefighters union, International Association of Firefighters Local 55, began campaigning aggressively against the city’s public safety parcel tax renewal and increase, Measure U, which was on the March primary ballot and would have helped fund both police
and fire services. The measure failed.
Mayor Carol Dutra-Vernaci said that when the station closed, some residents raised the alarm about medical emergencies in that part of town served by the station, which is why she supported the idea of leasing it to the ambulance company.
Malloy said that there’s “no guarantee” emergency response times will be faster in the area around the station as a result of this agreement, but that there
will be “ambulances moving through this area more frequently, because it will be a base of operations.”
Dutra-Vernaci said at a meeting last month that the partnership will bring peace of mind to residents living nearby.
“So I think just from a psychological standpoint, having an ambulance there ready to roll, should something happen in that part of town, will bring a lot of comfort to our residents, so I’m happy to hear that,” she said.