March 07--SKYLINE -- Mankato's smallest next-door neighbor isn't ready to give up its independence, but it is considering hiring Mankato to provide a second major municipal service: fire protection.
Skyline, made up of the homes on a single hill on Mankato's southwest side, has been an incorporated city since 1957 with its own City Council, City Hall, snowplow, drinking water system and 1973 fire truck (received from Edina in the 1990s). A decade ago, Skyline's City Council contracted with Mankato for sewage treatment after attempting to rely on septic systems, which were increasingly out of compliance with environmental rules.
The latest proposed change, still in the discussion phase, would disband the Skyline Volunteer Fire Department and pay Mankato to provide fire protection from its station at the Public Safety Center at Liberty Street and Riverfront Drive. The Skyline council authorized Mayor Travis Javens to seek a proposal from Mankato City Manager Pat Hentges, who wasn't surprised by the request.
"It's very expensive to train and keep your own fire department," Hentges said. "It makes sense (to have Mankato provide service). Frankly, we go within a foot of their boundary now."
Javens, who is the fire chief along with being mayor, said the possible shuttering of the department comes down to some basic math. First, the town's population -- and the pool of potential firefighters to replace those who retire or move away -- is falling. A population that reached 400 in 1970 was down to 291 by 2012.
So when two firefighters recently left the department, no potential replacements existed. Anybody in town capable of being a volunteer firefighter either already is or already declined after being recruited. Essentially, in Skyline, the fire department is the Welcome Wagon.
"Whenever somebody moves in, one of the first things we do is approach them about the fire department," he said. "... We do let 'em settle in for a month or two."
Secondly, under today's regulations, a new volunteer must take dozens of hours of training before he or she is authorized to fight a fire, even in a volunteer department.
In the past, the fire chief could knock on a guy's door, ask if he was willing to join and the deal was pretty much done.
"You'd say, 'OK, come on over and we'll give you a coat and boots,'" Javen said. "It's just not that way anymore."
A third piece of the math is that, even with a full contingent of volunteers, Skyline's fire department would still be seriously understaffed 10 or 12 hours a day, five days a week. That's because the town, which has no commercial district, is the ultimate bedroom community, with most of the non-retired population working in Mankato or other nearby towns.
The final key number is six, or thereabouts.
"We get probably a half-dozen calls a year," said Javens, adding that those are almost always medical assists in which the fire crew responds along with a Gold Cross ambulance. "We haven't had an actual fire call in about three years."
Details of Hentges' proposal won't be available until the Skyline City Council receives them, probably on Monday. But Hentges said his goal was to offer services at a price that basically matched what the town is now paying for its fire department, about $10,000 a year.
Hentges said he would throw in a few police patrols as part of the offer, which both councils would need to approve before it could take effect.
Javens doesn't expect the council to make a decision on Hentges' proposal at Monday's meeting, saying the council will still need to get community input. But he expects a decision before long.
"It's going to be sooner rather than later," he said.
What won't be happening in the foreseeable future is a more comprehensive shifting of services to Mankato via a merger, Javens said.
"People up here are happy being our own little community," he said.
Copyright 2014 - The Free Press, Mankato, Minn.
