Local News
Groundbreaking for New Safety Training Center
The city of Fond du Lac officially broke ground on a new Safety Training Center on Wednesday. The facility will provide an area for law enforcement and firefighters to train more often and closer to the community.
City Manager Joe Moore explains that it was a groundbreaking on a building – but also the groundbreaking for a vision. Moore says “being good is okay. But then striving for excellence requires something extra and we think that our vision for excellence includes an increased capability for training. Training for our paramedics, firefighters, police officers – and this facility – it meets that vision. It’s going to give us that training capability that we want.”
The facility will allow for extra training – including a firing range and the capability for live fire burns. Police Chief Bill Lamb tells us they will be able to train six times more often than they do now.
Lamb says “our officers are trained well, but this is going to allow us to take that training to an entirely higher level. And that’s critical in this day and age. We have a tremendous obligation to make sure that our police officers have the training, equipment, and resources that they need to do their job safely and go home safely to their families at the end of their shift.”
Fire Chief Peter O’Leary says it will help keep first responders on their toes – and that it will be equipped for any department to respond from the facility if needed. O’Leary tells us “whatever we’re doing, we have to be ready. We’re mission ready, critical calls or the ones that we have every day – we have about twenty calls for service a day ranging from medical calls to fires. And we’ve got to be ready to do that too, so this facility is going to give us a chance to do that and still be able to respond to our community.”
The facility, located along
is expected to be built by January – with the exterior parking lot and other
things wrapped up in the spring.