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Recommendation for approval of an amendment to the Milwaukee County agreement for providing fire services to the buildings located on the former County Grounds
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Submitted by:
John Ruggini, Alan Kesner and James Case
Department:
Finance, City Attorney and Fire Departments
A. Issue
Since 1980, the City of Wauwatosa has provided fire service to the facilities located on the former County Grounds including the hospitals at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Campus. Given the private ownership of nearly all buildings, demolition or transfer of all County facilities on the hospital grounds and changing property tax status of the hospitals, the County and City have reached a proposed agreement for winding down the County's financial commitment and relieving the City of operation restrictions.
B. Background/Options
In 1980, Milwaukee County and the City of Wauwatosa entered into an agreement for providing and funding first-line fire protection services to county-owned buildings and properties as well as the Private Geographic Members (PGM's) of the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center located on the Milwaukee County Grounds, all of which were at that time exempt from the payment of property taxes which would ordinarily support the provision of such services, coinciding with the dissolution of the Milwaukee County Fire Department which had previously provided such services. The City of Wauwatosa took on the responsibility for providing those services and the County agreed to pay for the construction of a new fire station (Station 53 on Watertown Plank Road) and to fund the provision of those services for 60 years. The City agreed to minimum staffing requirements at that fire station.
Over the past three decades, the County has been divesting itself of responsibilities and facilities on the County Grounds, including the sale of the former County Hospital which became Froedtert. In 2020, the County sold the land on which the PGM's had constructed their facil...
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