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ALPINE SKI: Boys and girls both 2nd at conference. PAGE 8
SARA MARIE MOORE | PRESS PUBLICATIONS
The brand new Lino Lakes fire station at the corner of Centerville Road and Birch Street began providing service all on its own this week.
New fire station up and running BY SARA MARIE MOORE STAFF WRITER
LINO LAKES — The Lino Lakes Public Safety Department's fire service has dispatched. As of Feb. 1, it is the sole first responder to fire-related emergencies. The response crew includes cross-trained police officers who are constantly on patrol around the city and about two dozen on-call firefighters. There are about a dozen assigned to each station, the older Centennial Fire District (CFD) station on the north side on Lake Drive and the new station on the
south side. The city’s brand new fire station at the corner of Centerville Road and Birch Street is a state-of-the-art design and was developed with the assistance of a consulting firm, said Councilman Bill Kusterman. The total cost of the building was $3.9 million. It is 15,014 square feet, which includes some exterior areas. The station has new training equipment, a dispatch center, day room and garage. When an on-call firefighter reports to duty, he or she will go to the turnout gear room and suit up. They will then go to the dispatch center room and await
instructions. There will also be a screen that displays which firefighters have responded to the call and are on their way. If called to the scene, they will board the responding equipment units and head out. When returning from a call, firefighters will use the “decon” restrooms to get out of their gear, which is “the unfancy bathroom,” said Public Safety Director John Swenson. If their breathing apparatus needs a fill they will bring it to the apparatus storage room. There are special washers and dryers for turnout gear. The fire station is equipped
with multiple features that offer firefighters 11 of the 12 training requirements to be licensed. Firefighters need to update their training every three years. The only training element not available at the new station is a live burn. “We can do all of them in this building,” said Swenson, “only not the live burn.” There is a second-story training mezzanine just above the garage where firefighters can use ladders to go through windows. The mezzanine has open slots where different types of windows can be installed for practice. The mezzanine also
SEE NEW FIRE STATION, PAGE 11
Local student artists create awareness
BY JOLENE FRID CONTRIBUTING WRITER
CIRCLE PINES — Winners of both the Peace Poster and Drug Awareness Poster contests and their teachers joined Ginny Hestekind of the Circle/Lex Lions Club for a special evening ceremony on Jan. 26. The event included a pizza supper and awards for the students, who were specially selected for
their posters. The event was kicked off with the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer blessing by Reverend Steve Sampson. Hestekind, who has been a Lions Club volunteer since 1992, says that the Drug Awareness poster contest purpose is to grow awareness and help make the area a better community. “We want to encourage our kids
has a manhole that extends down to the turnout gear room and a board that firefighters can cut through to simulate an emergency where cutting through a floor is necessary. The training mezzanine can be filled with smoke by flipping switches on a wall in a separate room. There is a window in that room through which observers may look out onto the mezzanine. A training tower simulates a four-story building. Firefighters can be trained in the stairwell inside or on the wall outside of the building,
to say no to drugs,” she said. The contest has been held for 26 years through Lions Club International, and 600,000 posters were entered in the contest last year. The Circle/Lex Lions Club partners with local schools to invite students to participate. The ceremony is held to JOLENE FRID | SUBMITTED honor both teachers Sharon Peltier is a fifth-grade teacher at Centennial Middle School. One of her stuSEE LOCAL STUDENTS, dents, Olivia Neibergall, is a winner in one of the contests. PAGE 3
er t n i W “ ials Spec ble!” Availa
Blue Heron students gather eyeglass donations BY JOLENE FRID CONTRIBUTING WRITER
LINO LAKES — Old eyeglasses are new in 2016. When Ginny Hestekind, member of the Circle Pines-Lexington Lions Club, gave a presentation about the club for Curt Gutbrod’s fifth-grade
class at Blue Heron Elementary about 20 years ago, it began a tradition that is still carried on within the Centennial School District each school year. Gutbrod, who encourages his class to “think beyond SEE EYEGLASS DONATIONS, PAGE 2
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