BELLA VISTA, Ark. — The city is asking citizens to vote for or against three public safety projects and a one percent sales tax increase to pay back those bonds.
“In order to do the live fire training, we’d have to go to another facility with our equipment to do that. This right here will keep them in town where they have the availability to respond at any time while they are doing their training,” Chief Stephen Sims said.
That’s why Bella Vista wants to build a fire training tower that will double as another fire station bringing the city to a total of five fire stations. Chief Stephen Sims says they also want to replace the Branchwood or fire station three because right now it’s too small for an ambulance.
“It only houses two people. With the new fire station, we’ll be able to expand it, add more personnel out there to be able to run dual fire and ambulance services,” Sims said.
The new public safety facility would be built here right by the city’s street department off of highway 279. The city already owns this piece of land that they say if the perfect size for the project. Police Chief James Graves says this location allows officers quick access to the entire city.
Graves says one question he’s gotten is ‘Will it affect my dispatch time for officers who are responding if I were to call 911?’
“I tell people no, it will not affect your dispatch time where the police department is because we don’t dispatch from the facility, we dispatch from the field locations. We’ll put officers out in different parts of the city,” he said.
Graves says the current police station is half the size they need and is only about 7,000 square feet and was never designed to be a police department.
“Security concerns, we have office space problem. We don’t have a training room. We don’t have locker rooms, areas that we can grow the department,” he said.
The 1% sales tax increase is estimated to be in place for a decade until the city pays back the bond. Early voting began today and will continue through the week.
