The old saying "seeing is believing" is definitely true with the Marion Fire Department's need to replace its downtown home.

The 111-year-old building at 186 S. Prospect St. is woefully outdated for 2022 fire protection needs. The garage bay is too small to house large ladder trucks, and even the ones that do fit are just barely squeezed in. Broken ceiling tiles litter the building as water damage from a leaky roof seems omnipresent. The basement - the area where firefighter lockers are kept - regularly floods.

To be blunt, it is shameful that Marion's firefighters are forced to work out of a building that was originally constructed for horse-drawn fire engines, to say nothing of its many other deficiencies. The city's fire department should not be headquartered in a building that almost assuredly would not pass a fire inspection.

That is not to say the department has not been trying to maintain the structure, but there is only so much that patches and elbow grease can cover in a century-old structure.

That is one of the main reasons we support the city's proposed 2.75 mill levy for fire services. The levy would generate roughly $1 million annually. It would allow the city to move its main station to land the city owns near Marion General Hospital. It would also allow the city to put its fire vehicles on a regular replacement schedule and eventually update fire stations No. 2 and No. 3. The fire department found itself down a vehicle recently and fortunately avoided disaster while it worked to replace it.

The levy would cost the owner of a $100,000 home in Marion $96.25 annually, a cost we feel is justified to ensure the department is properly funded and Marion residents are protected with up-to-date fire equipment.

While we believe this levy is needed, we also believe a real discussion between Marion city and township officials must occur about fire service consolidation. It has long seemed silly for there to be two separate departments covering a similar geographic area with fire stations just blocks apart.

Will merging departments save money immediately? Likely not without layoffs, which are not desired. Such a merger, however, would almost assuredly allow fire protection to be more strategically placed throughout the community to anticipate future growth. It has been clear that an honest effort to discuss such a proposal has not yet occurred, and we highly encourage local government leaders to do so.

A second concern expressed by some on Marion City Council is that the levy proceeds would not legally be restricted to capital expenses - meaning in theory they could be used for employee salaries. We believe flexibility in how to use the money in the future is a good thing should an emergency arise, and if residents are unhappy with how the money is being spent they are free to replace members of council who approve the spending. The expectation would be the city would use revenues from the levy for capital expenses at least until the new fire building is paid in full.

Voting to increase taxes is never an easy sell. We encourage residents with concerns about the proposal to visit the fire station for themselves and see the conditions firefighters are essentially forced to live in for a third of their lives. They deserve better and we encourage Marion voters to provide the resourced needed for a 21st Century fire headquarters.