Tempers flare at Beaver Lake public consultation meeting

The fire hall in the Greater Sudbury community of Beaver Lake was packed on Wednesday night as residents from the area came out to hear from the city and its fire chief over proposed changes under the modernization plan.

City administration is proposing closing the Beaver Lake hall and having the area covered by Whitefish, which would be the closest community to the east.

"We are in a position right now that why, after bringing this forward three times, why is it the act? Why are they continuing to do it? Is it because it's about career composite (full-time firefighters)? I don't know that, I'm just surmising and I don't see the end result other than we're going to put people at jeopardy, their safety is going to be at issue and we're hurting not only our community but for a cost that is so minute relative to one station downtown, it doesn't make sense," said Councillor Michael Vagnini.

Vagnini is the area councillor for Beaver Lake and he's made his intentions clear that he plans to vote against the changes.

"These halls were put here, way back when, because it made sense," he said. "We don't have high-rise apartments going up in these areas but what they're forgetting about is when the mines are up and running, full-bore, and that may be five years or seven years, where are they going to get their protection from?"

Members of the 'Save the Beaver Lake' committee covered the hall in signs, many of their volunteers were dressed in blue, they wanted to send a message to city hall.

Brenda Salo says they have a real fight on their hands when it comes to Tom Davies Square.

"It's a big one, for some reason they think they can take Beaver Lake Fire Department and merge it with Whitefish Fire Department," she told CTV News. "We need to keep the station here, we have 800 homes here ranging from $200,000 to $1,250,000 … people are not going to get their insurance and that's what has got everyone stoked."

Volunteers set up a portable microphone so that residents could ask their questions to Chief Nicholls and it would be piped over the speakers.

Many looked visibly frustrated, some resorted to yelling and Salo says it's not going to get them anywhere. She called for cooler heads to prevail.

"We're a really tight-knit community, so when someone's sick and when someone loses a member – we're together. We work together as a unit and we're going to work together on the fire department as well. They're not getting our fire department and they're not getting our fire truck," she said.

Home insurance is something that also worried area resident Robert Luopa who says the city has not thought this whole thing through.

"If they close it, we will all be out of the required distance that insurance companies will cover us at our current state. We'll all have our insurance rates go up significantly, we'll have property values go in the toilet. These fancy boards that the city put up just talk about how they'll take five or six seconds off from the Four Corners. We're half an hour from the city, we don't have volunteers here because they're too discouraged. Volunteers who tried out several years ago, no one passed the test," he said.

The city has yet to make a decision on whether it will support the plan. Staff will bring a report back to council in the second quarter.

The idea of public consultation was brought forth by Labbee, whose ward could also lose a few fire halls, including Skead.

Public consultation sessions are still scheduled for Falconbridge, Hanmer and Wahnapitae.