On May 8, representatives from the Santa Fe Springs development are scheduled to present their reasons for requesting the exclusion of about 50 acres of commercial land from the Peyton fire district. The latter will host the meeting.Although the Peyton fire district board has already voted to deny the request, a public hearing is required by law.Ray OíSullivan of Realty Development Services, the developer of Santa Fe Springs, said at first he didnít realize that the subject acreage is in the Peyton fire district. When he discovered it, he said he thought it would be a simple matter to get the property transferred to the Falcon fire district.The Falcon Fire Protection District has agreed to include the land.ìI offered to build a station in the Falcon district and Falcon offered to staff it with two emergency medical technicians 24/7,î OíSullivan said. ìI actually want the people [who buy homes in Santa Fe Springs] served, and thatís my plan.îAn older map of the Santa Fe Springs development shows a fire station in the Peyton fire district and a fire station in the Falcon fire district. A newer map shows three fire stations in the Falcon fire district, as well as one in the Peyton district.OíSullivan explained the confusion. ìOur planners picked out sites they thought might be opportune and let the fire district choose the one they want. I cannot afford to build two fire stations, particularly one that wouldnít be manned and across the street from each other. I canít find any logic in that. It sounds like politics to me. Iím interested in safety and protecting the people.ìWhen I see things like school districts and fire districts that are hamstrung by a tax code that doesnít allow them to have a sufficient capital budget, I try to solve these problems. If people want to be obstructionist to that solution, then Iím going to take the actions necessary to try to make a deal.îOíSullivan has agreed to purchase new trucks for the station in the subdivision. All at no cost to the taxpayer.Trent Harwig, Falcon fire district chief, said he is not aware of any developer who has built a fire station in El Paso County in the past. Harwig said he told OíSullivan that the station had to be built before the fire district could approve the subdivision. ìHe could have fought that and begged for mercy from the county commissioners, but they are not very sympathetic to that,î Harwig said. ìThe commissioners are on our side right now. ìThe developer has not promised a set amount of money to go to fire protection. Weíve worked with the developer to get a station built with a truck in it to protect that area, and we were successful in getting that done. One hundred percent of the development thatís within the Falcon fire district is within 1.5 road miles of that fire station.îHarwig also said that this issue could go before the county commissioners. ìIf the Peyton fire district does not agree to whatever terms or conditions that OíSullivanís group is willing to give them, and they continue to say that they will not exclude the land then it does go to the commissioners,î he said.ìI think OíSullivan has a pretty good chance of winning, simply based on the fact that heís the only one thatís ever agreed to build a fire station. I donít think the commissioners will make him build two fire stations because the development can be served by one.îTaking a case like this to the county commissioners is not unprecedented. In 2001, property owners in the Coal Canyon Fire Protection District asked to be excluded from that district, according to information on the Jefferson County Web site. The Coal Canyon fire district denied the request, and the property owners appealed to the Jefferson County commissioners, who found in favor of the property owners.A small portion of the Santa Fe Springs development is located in the Ellicott Fire Protection District. Ellicott district Fire Chief Ed Corn said they had received an informal inquiry from Santa Fe Springs to exclude the land from the Ellicott fire district. ìWe invited them to two board meetings, but they never showed up,î Corn said.ìWhen we formed this district, we set a policy of not changing district boundaries. The only exception is for areas that arenít in any fire district at all. Thereís some land near Drennan and Meridian that we recently included in our district on the condition that they put up a fire station.îìI understand where the Peyton fire district is coming from,î Harwig said. ìThe city of Colorado Springs does it to us all the time. Weíve been protecting the west side of the district since it was formed, and now somebody wants to build a strip mall at Woodmen and Black Forest roads, and they exclude from us.îThe public hearing on the transfer request will be held at the Peyton fire station May 8 at 6:30 p.m. as part of the boardís regularly scheduled board meeting. The public is invited to attend.Editorís note: Bob Joly of the Peyton Fire District did not wish to comment on the record.
