WAUKEE – As the city transforms from a small town to a booming suburb, calls for service continue to rise.
Police officers and fire fighters are dealing with an uptick in calls and cramped space in their Public Safety Facility.
The city of Waukee and local emergency service departments continue to expand each year. Local 5 rode along with a Sergeant who showed us how big their call perimeter is. And how his officers are keeping up with the growth.
“It’s a lot to cover now,” said Sgt. Hector Arias with the Waukee Police Dept. “The city knows it, command staff knows it.”
Waukee is becoming one of the biggest Des Moines suburbs. With that comes more work for local police and fire departments.
“It’s just more people, more calls,” said Sgt. Arias. “It doesn’t mean we are getting more bad people, absolutely not. It just means we are getting more calls and that’s just how it works.”
And as the city continues to develop, Sgt. Arias says the headquarters for emergency personnel isn’t cutting it anymore. Space is tight for both police officers and fire fighters.
The building was build in 2000 when the population of Waukee was about 5,000 people. Now the city has grown to approximately 19,000.
“We have done a good enough job as we can keeping up with that growth, with 15-20 percent call volume every year it is hard to keep up,” said Chief Clint Robinson with the Waukee Fire Dept.
Chief Robinson says to help alleviate some of the stress, the city hopes to build another safety building, but it won’t be open until 2025. For now crews are having to manage the cramped space. While also balancing the volume of calls.
“What’s been happening is we have multiple calls at once and sometimes it’s three and four calls at once so that taxes our system” said Chief Robinson.
The fire department hopes the second safety building is placed close to where the new Waukee high school is going up.
“We are going to have a presence where we are at right now and then in the new part as well,” said Chief Robinson.
Even with space issues and city progression, both departments say it isn’t holding back work. They are proud to see their community on the rise.
“This is it, this is Waukee,” said Sgt. Arias.
The new public safety building will be built on money from the Optional Sales Tax that passed in Dallas County. That way it won’t levy additional property taxes on Waukee homeowners.
