Aubrey will soon have a fire training center of its own.
The Aubrey City Council approved the purchase of a turn-key structure by WHP Trainingtowers for $1,281,170.76 at its Feb. 26 meeting that features a mix of elevations: a one-story burn room, a twostory apartment simulator and a fourstory tower.
'It has various roof simulators,” Chief Eric Schlotter said. “We can practice the different pitches and styles of roofs that we encounter.”
It also will allow the firefighters to understand how sprinkler systems work in a burn scenario, and it has both an open and a closed set of stairs to give functional training with those as well.
'It gives us a lot of robust options for how we're going to set up our scenarios and training,' Schlotter said.
The structure itself is made of metal and concrete, and other materials can be used in the windows and the rooms to help the firefighters practice that 'are sacrificial and can be changed out,' he said, without damaging the structure itself.
'I had the pleasure of managing one of these for about 14 years, and we had almost no maintenance on the structure itself, just the usual cleanup and things like that, but no repairs to keep it functioning,' Schlotter said.
As of now, Aubrey goes to either Denton or Ponder to train.
'We try to go to Denton,' he said. 'They're very, very proud of their training tower and cost of use, and so we can't always afford to go there.'
The Ponder center is built from steel shipping containers welded together, Schlotter said, and it also charges to train there.
'There's a lot of logistics in traveling that far,' he said, later adding, '… They both create operational issues in the city, so we have to hire overtime or get other de- partments to cover us when we want to go en masse for training. This will be in our jurisdiction; it's a nice central location, so all three stations will be able to go to the tower without compromising our coverage.'
He foresees the center benefitting more than just the Aubrey Fire Department.
'I would love for it to be regional,' Schlotter said. '… It would be my preference that we don't charge for our strategic partners. It seems kind of odd to just circle money around like that. Or just enough to keep it operational, not necessarily to profit off of something like this.'
Having the training center also falls in line with the Aubrey ISD Fire Academy's needs to fully certify those students.
'All those skills come in the second year, which is the end of next year's school year,' Schlotter said. 'We should be up and running in plenty of time to handle that program for many years to come.'
Construction should take about six months.
Also in the meeting, the council approved an update to the downtown master plan with Westwood Professional Services.
Clay Riggs spoke for Westwood, explaining that the company plans to 'make it align with the comprehensive plan.'
'The current downtown master plan was adopted in 2015,' Assistant City Manager Leanne Wilson said. 'This project will include an update to the plan. It will create a fresh new document, building on the past plan and looking out into the future. … You can see, a lot has changed in 10 years.'
The council also accepted a bid of $780,505 from Legacy Contracting for a lift station on FM 428.
The council also approved the final plat for Silverado West Phase 3 as well as the preliminary plat and final plat for Highpointe Ranch Phase 2 East.
Two women spoke during citizen input in opposition to a possible EPIC City outside of Aubrey.
Mayor Chris Rich and Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Perry explained that the area in question is in the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction and outside of the City Council's control.
'If you want to make an impact on this, talk to your state legislators, because as you know, our jurisdiction ends with the city limits,' Rich said.
