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Dec. 20--The City Council is looking to take a first step to exert its power of eminent domain to acquire property for a new west-side district fire station at Edgewood Road and Crestwood Drive NW.
In a memorandum to the council, the city's senior real estate officer, Rita Rasmussen, asks the council to take the first step and set the "fair market value" for the 3 acres of vacant land at $140,000, an amount established by a city-hired appraiser.
Subsequently, the council will be asked to refer the matter to the Linn County Compensation Commission for resolution if purchase negotiations between the city and the property owner, Westgate Communities LLC of Dubuque, are not successful. The city will offer non-binding mediation to Westgate before pushing the matter to the commission, Rasmussen states in the council memo.
At one point earlier this year, unsuccessful negotiations with Westgate prompted the city to turn to a second option for the new west-side district fire station a couple blocks to the north at Edgewood Road NW at Rogers Road NW. However, the property owner there, Dave Kramer -- who at one point in the past was the city's parks commissioner and a City Council member and at another, the city's parks director -- objected to the city's plan to seize his property and cut down his trees for the new firehouse. In response, the city decided to return to the first option, the Westgate property.
The city is building a new west-side district fire station to fill a hole in the Fire Department's response map. The hole is the result of the city's decision to move the central fire station from its flood-damaged, west-side home at 222 Third St. NW to a new east-side home in the 700 block between First and Second avenues SE. The city intends to close the east-side district station at 1424 B Ave. NE when the east-side central fire station and the new west-side district fire station are in place.
