The Indianola City Council held a study session regarding city buildings after their meeting Monday evening, discussing the Indianola Public Safety Building, City Hall, and the Indianola Public Library. Interim City Manager Charlie Dissell tells KNIA News the discussion centered around a staffing study that took place approximately four years ago that showed the city was understaffed in both the police and fire departments, and over the years as the city has hired staff to make up for the shortage, space at city facilities has become a concern. Dissell said currently the police and fire departments have equipment stored in separate facilities, which adds to response times and costs precious seconds.
“Something that we always talk about is we have incidents at Lake Ahquabi, where there are individuals who need assistance if they’ve fallen into the lake during the winter for example. Our fire department, when they go to respond to something like that, and remember that any response that we are looking at, seconds are important in these responses. Our fire department has to put their gear on, they have to run across the street, move some equipment to get to the proper equipment ready, then head to the incident. So there are a lot of things taking place in our response because we are operating out of three different buildings right now.”
The projected cost for a new City Hall/Library building and a larger Public Safety building is $46 million. For more information, tune in to today’s Let’s Talk Indianola, and view the full press release from the city below.