Peralta council approves addition to aging fire station

PERALTA — While the end goal for the town of Peralta is a new fire station, the governing council recently approved a site plan for an addition to the current station in the meantime.

The station on James Road, built in the 70s, has been long overdue for some updates as over the years it has become crowded and lacking in adequate necessities.

The approved site plan includes new restrooms and shower rooms, a locker room for bunker gear, office space and a day room space.

“The Peralta Fire Department is pretty old; we’re not up to standards on anything,” said Peralta Fire Chief Cody Kersey at the Jan. 14 council meeting. “We have to build an add-on behind the station to house our bunker gear. It can’t be in the same place as our trucks because of carcinogens.”

Kersey said the addition of a new office space that people can use to do reports and other administrative duties is important, and creating a dedicated space for the day room will make another big difference.

“The day room is for our paid EMS during the day while they’re working,” he said. “That’s somewhere they can sit and relax a little bit. Right now, our day room is in our classroom, so our classroom is taken and that’s hurting our training sessions.”

Town Clerk Kori Taylor said they awarded $250,000 from capital outlay funding for the renovations in 2023, as well as a $400,000 grant in 2024 from the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Leadership worked with local architect John Kirkpatrick on the design of the addition, which he explained in more detail at the meeting.

“We have a beautiful fire station that’s coming, but that’s going to take some time, right? So in the meantime, we’ve come up with a plan to extend our building and get them into the fire station requirements that they need to be in,” Kirkpatrick said.

We’ll have a real women’s bathroom. If you’ve been in there, it’s a little teeny bathroom that I don’t think has been upgraded for probably 30 years. So we’re trying to keep it simple, because we know we have a limited budget.”

After Fire Chief Kersey confirmed that he liked the floor plan drawing and design, Councilor Randy Smith made a motion to approve the site plan to which all the councilors voted in approval of.

Taylor said in a recent phone interview that leadership is now trying to decide if they will go out to bid for construction of the project or do a statewide price agreement contract.

With regard to the new fire station, Peralta has so far secured $1 million in capital outlay with the help of Rep. Melanie Stansbury for the construction of the facility which is slated to be built on the west side of N.M. 47, where Molina Road intersects the highway. However, they still need about $7 million more dollars to fully fund the project.

“It’s a big start. (Stansbury) did ask for the whole amount, but it was cut,” said Taylor in a previous article. “We believe this $1 million will pay for the intersection work that is needed…It will take quite a few years to build the new one, and this will give them a little more space. We will be asking for additional capital outlay. We just have to keep working at it and we’ll eventually get it.”

The council also approved the hiring of two new EMS (emergency medical services) employees at the meeting which will now allow for full weekend EMS coverage.

Over the past few years, Peralta has been bolstering up their EMS department because the majority of calls fire departments receive are for EMS, and being that Bosque Farms does not have EMS anymore, there is definitely a need for it in the area.

In addition to the new employees, Assistant Fire Chief Ashley Means also secured a $7,000 grant to help equip their new ambulance with medical supplies.

Taylor said while this has been a big help, there is still more that needs to be purchased for the ambulance to get it up and running, but they are working on that as quickly as they can so PFD can begin providing ambulance transportation services.