Money Needed to Train

03/28/2007

Chris Woodard
KTTC TV


ROCHESTER, MN -- After being shot down for years, local emergency responders have a new plan to get the training facility they so desperately need.

They say it could be the difference between life and death but they're still having a hard time convincing Rochester to make it a priority.

This is a training tower used by the Rochester fire department a few times every year to test new recruits, or make sure the current firefighters are up to snuff.

Its one of many old or makeshift structures that have done the job fine for years.

But officials in local police, sheriff and fire departments say when training tools like this are all they have to work with, it could just be a matter of time before a serious mistake could affect them or someone whose life they're trying to save.

Those that protect and serve in Rochester have been doing a fine job for years but they're worried about their training heading into the future.

Rochester Fire Chief Dave Kapler says, "Hoping for the best is not a plan and in a lot of area's we've been hoping for the best."

Don't get them wrong members of local law enforcement and fire departments do train.

But simulating a shooting drill by saying, "bang bang" or practicing putting out a fire in the tenth floor of a building, by soaking a tiny wooden cabin doesn't quite cut it.

Olmsted County Sheriff Steve Borchardt says, "When an officer is out here in a firefight with people that want to kill him, almost isn't good enough. So we're living on borrowed time."

Kapler says, "We have mishaps, we have close calls, we have things that just aren't as good as they should be."

They say the solution is a new 6.5-million dollar training facility located on city land next to the Rochester airport.

If that sounds a bit familiar it should. Local first responders have been trying to get some sort of training facility built for more than eight years.

Borchardt says, "We treat our kids better in sports than we do our officers, our firefighters, and our ambulance drivers."

He adds that year after year they lose out when the city decides what they're priorities are for state funding.

"We come in last to wonderful sporting facilities and wonderful parks and wonderful other amenities."

Council members say they shouldn't shoulder all the blame.

Council President Dennis Hanson says, "It's a regional project and we need people to understand that it's regional and we do support it but we have needs within the city of Rochester as well."

For the people trying to serve the public, they worry coming in last for very much longer could have tragic consequences.

Borchardt says, "We are not giving them the repetitions they need for their actions to become instinctive to save their lives and to save the lives of the people they're sworn to protect."

Monday the city did agree in principal to hand over the land at the airport to be used for a facility and to spend about 10-thousand dollars a year to maintain it.

But the Mayo Civic Center expansion is at the top of our local priority list this year and somehow the state needs to be convinced to spend bonding dollars on the facility.

Even if that happens the county board would still need to agree to at least a 50-percent or three and a half million dollar match.