Skip to main content

South Jordan collaborating with neighbor cities to cut fire department costs

Apr 06, 2020 03:58PM ● By Susan Palmer

One of South Jordan’s three fire stations. (Susan Palmer/City Journals)

By Susan Palmer | [email protected]

On March 3 at the South Jordan City Council meeting a resolution was put forward by Dustin Lewis, to authorize Mayor Dawn Ramsey to sign an Interlocal Agreement with the Metro Fire Agency. This resolution was passed with all in agreement.

Several cities in the Salt Lake County have formed a cooperating agreement and these cities include Bluffdale, Draper, Murray, West Jordan, South Jordan, South Salt Lake and West Valley. The purpose of this agreement is to work together to be efficient in the use of tax funds in the fire departments. The cities agreed to form the Metro Fire Agency to help the fire departments work together. This agreement allows the fire departments to purchase equipment, train together, and it allows them to share equipment in a way that saves tax payer dollars. This cooperation was initially put together to last five years and expired in 2017. At that time it was brought forward and an Interlocal Agreement was signed by all the cities that would extend the agreement for an indefinite period of time. Recently it was discovered that there may have been some glitches in how it was signed so just to be sure that things are done properly the agreement will be resigned.

One new portion that was added that would allow this agency to respond to areas outside of the jurisdiction of the cooperating cities if necessary. This would allow fire departments to respond to fires in other areas of the state.

Councilwoman Tamara Zander of District 4 said that, “As we listen to our city staff tell us how we work together so collaboratively with our fire and our police. I wish our city governments were working together collaboratively.”

South Jordan has three fire stations located in the city. Station 61 is located at 10758 South Redwood Road, Station 62 is located at 4022 West South Jordan Parkway, and Station 63 is located at 10451 South 1055 West. A fourth fire station, no. 64 to be located in the Daybreak community is under construction and should be completed by 2021.