Parking crunch sends firefighters across street

PALMER — Some firefighters here are angry over a decision from the city’s management to allow only city employees to park at the fire station during business hours.

The directive came after collaboration between city departments to address limited parking at Palmer City Hall, Director of Public Safety Jon Owen said.

Owen said there are 12 regular parking spots and one handicap spot at city hall. Those spots don’t accommodate the 15 regular city employees and contractors who use the lot daily.

“Consequently, it leaves no room for the public to park,” he said.

Parking in the lot between city hall and the Dan Contini Fire Station will be limited to certain city staff between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, Owen said. The change is not sitting well with some firefighters with the Palmer Fire Department, a largely paid on-call fire station.

“The firefighters are kind-of disturbed about it,” said Jesse Werner, who has been a Palmer firefighter for 35 years.

Werner said a sheet giving notice of the employees assigned to parking spots at the station was sent out Monday. That notice contained spots Palmer City Manager Bill Allen assigned to staff members between the fire station and city hall, Owen said.

Allen was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Now, firefighters will have to find a place to park on the street or in the First National Bank lot, where Owen said management has given the OK for firefighters to park on the lot’s north side.

“What this has resulted in is residents and people now have a clear space out front [of city hall],” Owen said.

But Werner said some in the fire department are worried about an increase in response time if volunteers can’t pull right up to the station when a call comes in. Since Palmer’s fire department is largely on-call volunteers, Werner said when firefighters are paged for an emergency call, they drive to the station as quick as possible to hop on a fire truck heading to the scene.

Without being able to park right next to the station, the time it takes to get responders on the road will increase.

“In an emergency, every second counts, and having to park across a busy street could cause delays and endanger responders,” Werner said.

Werner said without a painted crosswalk leading directly to the station from across the street, coupled with traffic driving on South Cobb Street, firefighters will be in danger of being hit by a car while in a hurry to get to the station.

But Owen said the city feels men and women who are allowed to handle massive fire trucks will be competent enough to cross the street safely, adding the city is not seeking to make life hard for firefighters.

“I would never do anything that would put our emergency responders in a dangerous situation or precarious situation,” Owen said.

But things are often different in the heat of an emergency, Palmer firefighter Charlie Akers said.

Akers, who has been with the department for more than 30 years, said while crossing the street can be done safely, when responding to an emergency firefighters are often in a hurry and not thinking about crossing a road in front of traffic.

“It’s an added hazard, I believe,” Akers said, adding the change in parking “was kind of a surprise.”

Contact Michael Rovito at michael.rovito@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.