Dickinson gets $1.5M energy grant: Funds slated for new police, fire departments home

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A grant of $1.5 million could help the Dickinson Police Department and Dickinson Fire Department find a new home, officials said Friday.

The City of Dickinson received the most money from the Energy Infrastructure and Impact grants, said Lance Gaebe, director of Energy Infrastructure and Impact Office in Bismarck.

The funds are intended for the public safety center, which is slated to be completed in 2014, City Administrator Shawn Kessel said.

“The needs were so great in western North Dakota related to emergency management that the state decided to augment that,” Kessel said. “The more money we can get to defray expenses, the less we have to come up in other ways.”

The DFD also applied and received more than $10,500 for oil field emergency training classes.

Of the 163 applications, 106 received almost $12 million for emergency services and response needs in energy-impacted communities across in western North Dakota, which is in an oil boom.

Dickinson originally applied for $7 million for the project, Gaebe said, adding the office wanted spread the money out as much as possible across oil hub areas.

The DPD has its office in the Dickinson Law Enforcement Center. It is in “dire need” of a new building, DPD Capt. Joe Cianni said.

“We’ve actually outgrown our allocation of space in this building by quite a bit,” he said.

The department has decided to pull out of the LEC after adding staff, Kessel said. The public safety center will be the main office for the police department and the fire department, he added.

The DPD will continue to use the LEC, the city administrator said. It has not been decided to what extent the LEC will be used by Dickinson law enforcement.

The funds must be used within two years for the public safety center. The city does not have an engineer’s estimate for the project.

The building is not a sure thing, Cianni said. The city commission must approve funds for the public safety center.

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