Twin Falls to make safety the focus of next fire bond proposal

Dec. 11--TWIN FALLS -- The city will again ask voters to approve a bond issue to pay for new fire stations, but officials want to focus their message on resident safety.

Members of the Fire Station Advisory Board met on Friday to discuss the next steps Twin Falls should take in raising money for new fire department facilities.

A $36 million bond that would have paid for a variety of construction projects related to firefighter facilities failed in May with 63.45% of the vote, just shy of the two-thirds supermajority required of bond issues in Idaho.

City Manager Travis Rothweiler said there were many reasons the bond failed, including the cost of the project, the specific projects themselves and low voter turnout. Through a series of football analogies, he said "throwing the deep ball" was still the right call, but now the committee needs to "exercise extreme caution" when choosing their next "play."

"It might be a little slower and it might be a little more methodical, but at the end of the day, we'll push the ball past the goal line and we'll be to create the opportunity to ensure safety in our community," Rothweiler said. "We've just got to find the right run play to help us advance the ball."

Although the committee made no formal decision on the details for the next bond proposal, they favored hiring an outside consulting firm to survey Twin Falls' residents and implement a marketing strategy to express the city's plight.

"If we're going to be critical and we're going to reflect, I think our narrative was wrong," Rothweiler said of the last bond. "I think that we need to spend some time building the narrative in a way that demonstrates and shows the public's return on their investment."

Deputy City Manager Brian Pike agreed, saying conversations about response times and increased capacity maybe failed to connect without proper context.

"I think maybe the disconnect was how that increased capacity benefits the residents," Pike said. "We start talking about changing stations or locations of stations and reducing response times, that equates into lives saved, and I think we can do a better job of making that connection for our community."

Fire Chief Les Kenworthy said it's important to make sure voters understand the city isn't asking for anything unnecessary, and that the current facilities are in "poor condition overall for the operations that we are doing in today's fire service."

"We will do what our citizens say because they're ultimately who guides us," he said, "but we still have the same need."

All the needs from the failed bond proposal are still there and still cost money, but the city might have to compromise on the scope of the bond, given general concern for property taxes, Rothweiler said.

"I think we need to find a proposal that is palatable to a supermajority of our citizens in a very difficult political tax environment, and that might mean we have to ask for less than what we did the first time," he said.

The city can ask for the fire bond again in either May or November. Rothweiler said running the bond in May would mean a shortened timeline for planning the project, but going in November would force the city to cut through expected "political noise." Still, the city shouldn't be afraid of asking in November, when voter turnout will be higher.

"We were really the only thing on the ballot, and we had to give them a reason to go," he said. "They will already have a reason to go, all we have to do is give them a reason to vote yes."

Regardless of the day, it's important to get the bond passed the next time, he said, adding issues generally don't do well the third time on the ballot.

Ultimately, the city must make the project about the safety of firefighters and taxpayers, committee member Debbie Dane said.

"If we can cut through the clutter," Dane said, "and have a message that this is about us -- this is about our community -- that we could very well succeed."

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