A fire station equipped to serve the Shingle Springs community and the nearby Red Hawk Casino will replace an aging firehouse that El Dorado County Fire Protection District officials say is falling apart.
The county Planning Commission on Thursday backed the new 9,094-square-foot building, more than double the size of the present Station 28 on Ponderosa Road, just north of Highway 50.
The new station will be funded by local taxes and a hefty contribution from the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, which owns the casino.
Assistant Chief Mark Johnson said Shingle Springs residents approved a tax override to cover the approximately $3 million cost of the new building. It will be constructed before the existing station is torn down.
The Shingle Springs Band contributed $300,000 toward the project, as well as $500,000 to help staff the ambulance based at the station, Johnson said.
The station provides fire and emergency medical services to Red Hawk Casino, which opened last month on the nearby Shingle Springs Rancheria.
Johnson said the original Shingle Springs fire station was displaced by Highway 50 and moved up the road. Volunteers replaced it with a cinder-block building in the 1960s.
But Johnson said an engineer's inspection of the structure about 10 years ago found that "the thing is falling down." He said firefighters report hearing timbers snapping in the attic.
In approving a use permit for the new station, county Planning Commission members balked at one requested upgrade: an LED reader board to replace the current sign in front of the station.
Plans call for an LED reader board with a 55-square-foot display area for public safety messages. It would be the first such sign approved by the commission, and members worried that it could open the door to large commercial "billboards" with constantly changing messages like the one along Highway 50 at the Folsom Auto-mall.
The commission directed planning staffers to develop standards for such signs.
"If we're going to cross this boundary," commission member Walter Matthews said, "we probably need to set an example with this sign."
Call The Bee's Cathy Locke, (916) 608-7451.
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