INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — A change order adding survey work and a site plan for temporary firefighter housing at Fire Station 1 on Old Dixie Highway to a construction contract is up for a vote by the Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday, but modular buildings are not yet on their way.
Vero-based Barth Construction came back with the cost proposal for site and survey work on April 2, shortly after the County requested it as part of the preparation for installation of temporary housing trailers, but then the change order sat somewhere in the Emergency Services District for six weeks.
“[The delay in voting on] that change order won’t slow anything down,” County Administrator Joe Baird said Monday afternoon when asked why it took so long to bring the contract change forward.
The site plan and survey work need to be done prior to installing the modular buildings, which will each house five firefighters while $1.1 million in renovations are performed on the station.
“They’re still building the trailers, and then we need to haul them in and get them set up,” Baird said.
During a March impasse hearing regarding a 2013 labor contract between the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 2201 and the County, the Board of County Commissioners told staff not to waste any more time getting firefighters out of stations where there have been complaints of mold dating back to hurricane damage a decade ago.
Then a few days later, Emergency Services Director John King and the county’s labor attorney appeared before commissioners with a litany of reasons why the temporary housing would take many weeks, even months.
More than 50 firefighters have already filed worker’s compensation claims for physical ailments related to mold exposure on the job, in the stations where they live every third day while on shift.
In early April, county officials finally granted the IAFF’s team of hired environmental technicians’ access to stations in the City of Vero Beach, western Indian River County near the interstate and Fellsmere to test for mold and other environmental hazards. The County also had mold experts on site to perform testing.
On April 15, IAFF local president John O’Connor, a 15-year firefighter-medic, was relieved of his firefighting duty after seeking treatment in an Atlanta suburb for mold toxicity in his blood.
Commission Chairman Wesley Davis, who cautioned the staff from the beginning about dragging their feet on getting the temporary housing up and running, said Monday that he was pleased to see some movement – slow as it has been – on Station 1 in Vero, but that he was concerned about what he saw as not much happening on Station 7 near the Interstate.
Davis paid a visit Monday to the station, looked at the living quarters, spoke to firefighters on duty about their situation and came up with some ideas that he said he intended to pitch on Tuesday.
In an effort to find a workable solution, Davis said he brainstormed with the firefighters at Station 7, even asking them why the county couldn’t temporarily move operations to a nearby hotel or motel just to get them out of the station.
He said their main concern was that they need to be constantly hooked into the dispatch communication system to make sure they are informed of fire and medical calls assigned to their station, in real time.
After walking the site and looking at the space the county has to work with, Davis said another idea took hold.
While the county is trying to negotiate a deal on some real estate to build Station 7 anew in a better location, Davis said he thinks the housing section of the station can be demolished and the modular housing set up on its footprint, where the utilities and wiring for the communications system are already nearby. The bay area where the vehicles and equipment are kept, Davis said, looks to him like it could remain operable and work in tandem with the modular sleeping quarters while the new station is under construction.
“I want to be able to say, okay, we’re going to put this unit right here. It seems to me that there’s enough space there to do it,” Davis said.
Davis said Monday after his trip to Station 7 that he hopes his fellow commissioners will support an emergency add-on item on Tuesday’s agenda to talk about the fire stations and temporary housing plans.
“Show me some action,” he said, expressing his growing frustration with the glacial speed that any real movement has taken place on the fire station issue. “In the event that the staff says we can’t tear down the living quarters and put the modular there in that same spot, I want them to tell me why we can’t do it.”
With regard to the length of time it’s taking to actually get the modular buildings delivered, Davis said he asked Emergency Services Director John King about that and it was explained to him that the trailers need to be custom built to specifications which are disability compliant and built to withstand wind speeds of up to 150 miles per hour.
“It’s not like your typical double-wide that somebody might have sitting on their lot,” he said.
The staff recommended that firefighters at Orchid Island Station 11 and Fellsmere Station 10 would shelter in place while repairs were being done, and that work has been ongoing.
Commissioner Tim Zorc has also been working to de-escalate some of the most contentious issues with the firefighter union, including an order that came down from King during the labor impasse restricting the hours that fire-medics held over for mandatory 48-hour shifts are permitted to sleep after being called out in the middle of the night.
Zorc met twice with firefighter O’Connor at the county offices — on Friday and again on Monday — to discuss some possible solutions that could begin to rebuild trust and goodwill with the first responders. County Attorney Dylan Reingold reportedly attended Zorc’s meeting with O’Connor on Monday. Zorc, like Davis, is expected to ask for an emergency addition on Tuesday’s agenda to discuss pressing issues.
The Board of County Commissioners meets at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Commission Chambers in Building A of the Indian River County Administration Complex. Meetings are televised on Channel 27 and live streamed via the internet at www.ircgov.com.