Facilities don’t last forever. At times a governmental agency has to replace the buildings and equipment they use to protect our lives, property, or tax dollars.

Police cars break down, fire engines need repairs and all the equipment in between will stop functioning  at some point. Without replacements, our city and county personnel are forced to use unreliable equipment and buildings to provide the services we depend on.

Taxes are collected from us to ensure these departments have the funding required to maintain or replace those things as the need arises.

At times, thankfully rarely, we are asked to kick in additional funding to rebuild an existing facility due to its dilapidating state.

The roof may be leaking, the lights flicker from time to time and the paint just won’t stay on the walls. We may come to the initial conclusion that the city should find some way to fix what they have and carry on with their day to day, just like we do with our funds.

But think back to a time when you decided to make a big purchase. Instead of trying to fix whatever it was for the thousandth time, you opted to  upgrade to something that not only looked better, but had the best feature of all, improved reliability.

No matter what route you chose, it still hurt the bank account.

Within our city, there are two facilities in need of repair, the fire station on Palestine Road, and our police station.

Currently, there’s a plan in action to replace the aging fire station using fire insurance rebate funds. The goal is to repay the city the entire cost of the new building over the course of five years. It’s a great plan, and means there won’t be an increase in taxes.

If only we could find a way to do something similar for our police so they could operate out of something a little newer.