Sudbury city council rejects attempt to keep Beaver Lake Fire Station open

Meeting on Tuesday evening, Sudbury city council rejected an attempt to keep the Beaver Lake Fire Station open for another year.

Ward 7 Coun. Natalie Labbee asked councillors to reconsider a 2023 resolution that said Beaver Lake was required to have a certain number of volunteer firefighters within a year or face closure.

Labbee failed to garner enough support to reverse the decision.

"I'm really disappointed with the decision of council, but I have to support it," she said in an interview with CTV News following the meeting.

"I understand that they were concerned about the financial impact of keeping the station open and the uncertainty of not having the numbers of volunteers to respond at the police station. But we can't put a price on people's safety. And for me, I fought very, very hard for that community."

Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc said it was the financial implications of bringing the station up to code that led him to vote no.

"I had to turn it down because of the cost -- it was just too expensive," he said.

"I mean, we're looking at $200,000 for this year, and then we're looking at upgrades moving forward."

The Beaver Lake Fire Station has been a concern for residents. Before he died, former Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini was looking into purchasing a fire truck for the station. His advocacy for Beaver Lake residents was a reason why Labbee said she felt so passionate about the issue.

"I know that (Vagnini) was a very staunch supporter of the volunteer firefighters in all of our stations across the city, and that's something that I pledged that I would commit to for him," she said.

During the meeting, Labbee said there are a number of stations with low volunteer numbers. Beaver Lake Fire Station has seven, thanks to recruiting efforts by those in the community. Levack, comparatively, has six.

"Many of our stations, not just Skead and Beaver Lake, but there are many that have very low numbers of volunteers and that is very concerning to us as a council, as a city," she said. "And we cannot operate our fire services without volunteers."

Recently a coalition was formed by residents in Skead and Beaver Lake to save both stations. Ralph Prentice, chair of the Beaver Lake fire services committee, said he was disappointed by the decision.

"We thought that we had more support from our councillors," he said.

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"We did a lot of canvasing them. We talked to them. We thought that we'd get a better result to give us another year to recruit our volunteer firefighters."

Fire chief Joe Nicholls said discussions are underway to consolidate the Beaver Lake Fire Station with Whitefish.

Labbee said she hopes to present a motion regarding the Skead Fire Station at council next month.