Taos Ski Valley talks new fire station, clinic

New proposed firehouse would withstand extreme weather, fire and avalanches

No one doubts the need for a new firehouse in the Village of Taos Ski Valley, but some residents and officials have raised questions about aspects of the ski corporation’s plan to sell one to the municipality.

So Taos Ski Valley, Inc. held a public information meeting in the ski valley on Saturday (Jan. 28). About 25 people attended, including the village council.

Chaz Rockey, operations director for TSV and director of business development for Belvedere Property Management, organized the meeting alongside TSV Vice President Peter Talty and TSV Vice President Chris Stagg, who also sits on the village council.

Construction began last year on a three-story, multi-use building with a ground floor designed to house a fire department, and on an adjacent building into which the medical clinic will move. Renderings show a modern, three-bay firehouse with heated floors, wash station and showers for firefighters, and room for three firetrucks. A new building next door is designed specifically for the Mogul Medical Urgent Care clinic.

Unlike the current wood frame firehouse at 7 Firehouse Road, the new building will be “a bunker” designed to withstand extreme weather, fire and avalanches, according to TSV.

“It will operate through any emergency,” Rockey said. “We see this as a critical community asset.”

Francie Parker asked about a deed restriction on the current firehouse building that requires the village to use it primarily as a fire station or lose its free access to it. The arrangement, formed decades ago between the ski valley, Hondo Fire District and Taos County, has caused residents like Parker to worry that the village could lose the property to the ski corporation.

“There is no intent on Taos Ski Valley’s part to prevent this building to continue in its current capacity,” Talty said. “TSV has no ownership of this building, and there is no reversion clause.”

Moving EMS into 7 Firehouse Road after the fire department moves out will keep the village in compliance with the covenant, Rockey said.

“The village does not run the risk of forfeiting the use of it as long as they continue to use it as a firehouse — or EMS,” Talty added.

Kathy Bennett and her late husband, longtime village mayor Neal King, worked as firefighters and EMTs for decades in the ski valley. Bennett once chaired the village’s public safety committee.

“I think this is a 100 percent improvement considering what we had before,” she said. “It makes sense — and we’d talked about it a long time ago — to move EMS into the old firehouse.”