City not pursuing shared headquarters for police, fire, paramedics

The City of Greater Sudbury is no longer considering having one space for all three of its emergency services.

Two years ago city council had directed staff to work with police services to study whether a shared headquarters was viable. But that work was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At Tuesday night's city council meeting councillor René Lapierre asked council to reconsider its May 2019 decision. 

He says much of the work on the feasibility study never got off the ground because city staff had been dealing with the pandemic. 

Lapierre also told council that Greater Sudbury Police Services were further ahead in their progress to pursue a new headquarters.

And finally the councillor mentioned that having everything under one roof could be risky.

"I've attended a whole bunch of risk management seminars and a lot of them are saying we shouldn't put all our major infrastructure into one central location all together, should something happen, you know something to the building."

Cost savings?

Councillor Bill Leduc was the only member of city council who opposed the reconsideration. He says combining the headquarters would be about reducing the city's budget.

"If we can save some money by putting our headquarters together, where other municipalities have done that throughout North America, it is going to be a cost savings," he said.

Lapierre says it would not be cost-effective to consider a new headquarters for fire and paramedic services, which is currently located at the Lionel E Lalonde Centre in Azilda.

"LEL is in half decent shape and that wouldn't be on the top priority of the list of other stations that absolutely need to be redone," Lapierre said.

Headquarters not a priority for fire, EMS

Chief of fire and paramedic services, Joe Nicholls, agrees. He says his priority is the declining conditions of some of the fire halls across the city.

"My focus right now is on that station revitalization because we've got 24 stations we need to address," he said.

"I think the need of these stations, in my opinion, is a bigger priority right now than having a new headquarters," Nicholls said.

Consultants are currently assessing the stations across the city for the revitalization project Nicholls mentioned. That report is due in August. 

He also doesn't feel a one-site headquarters would improve fire and paramedic response times.

"Certainly we have a different mandate [than police] "

"The fact that we put everything under one roof, it would be hard-pressed to say that that's going to save lives or improve our overall response to a major emergency," Nicholls said.

'Dire need' for police

"It's most urgent for police services to move forward," says councillor Al Sizer, who is council's representative on the Greater Sudbury Police Services.

The headquarters on Brady Street is an office complex which does not suit policing needs. 

"I think it's time we start looking at each individual service and seeing exactly what their needs are," Sizer said.

"The police services building is in dire need."

Council was told that police services are ready to move forward on its own building assessment study.

"They are ready to put the tender out, they just need to put the wording in the tender whether it's going to be a fire, paramedic and police investigation and report or is it just going to be police." Lapierre said. 

"They're ready to go and they're waiting for us," he added.

In a final 9-1 vote, city council voted to reconsider the May 2019 resolution. Then the resolution was defeated, meaning the feasibility study for a shared headquarters between police, fire, paramedic services will not go ahead.

The original resolution included $100,000 for consultants, but that will not be spent.