The people have spoken. The votes have been tallied. The will of the public has been done.

And there was much rejoicing.

Obviously, that’s not always the case (I’m looking at you, inevitably disappointing presidential election), but sometimes everybody really does win.

Case in point: the wildly popular support island voters put behind the proposals to expand the Bainbridge Island Fire Department’s staffing and the start of 24/7 manning at Station 23, which officially began on Tuesday and will be celebrated with a special station open house event Saturday, Nov. 5.

“I can’t say this enough, how much I as a fire chief appreciate the community’s support to allow the fire department to provide the necessary levels of service to the island,” Bainbridge Island Fire Chief Hank Teran said. “It’s hard to find words to communicate that.”

Originally built in 1993, Station 23’s longtime primary function has been as a training center and a muster point for department volunteers. It has never been regularly staffed, though that has long been something asked for by residents of the north end — those farthest away from Station 21 and timely potential assistance.

“In February of 2015 we went out to the voters to ask for their support,” Teran explained. “The strategic plan that we had in 2015 identified opening our outlying stations to improve service on the island.”

Both propositions passed with more than 70 percent of voters in favor of the tax increases.

“What this does now is it gives us coverage throughout the entire island, a base coverage,” Teran said, adding that it was not only north end residents who will see the benefits (though response times are expected to drop “significantly” on the north end).

“It covers the rest of the island as well when [other] units are out of service,” he explained. “Approximately 30 percent of our calls are concurrent calls. Which means that when we’re out on one call, we get dispatched to another. So this station will help us provide that backup.”

Even relatively simple or non-serious calls can tie up responders, Teran said, which means that every call takes potentially life-saving assistance away from every other call if there is no additional unit available to go.

“Whether it’s EMS calls or fire, it’s absolutely essential that we reduce our response time wherever possible,” the chief said.

The approved propositions allowed the department to create six new full-time firefighter positions to be based at the Phelps Road station and complement the volunteers. The island fire department is based on what’s called a “combination model” involving a baseline staff of career firefighters that is supplemented by volunteers.

Currently, the department is split almost exactly 50/50, with about 30 volunteers working alongside 30 regular firefighters.

Another benefit of manning Station 23, the chief said, will hopefully never be necessary, but is nice to have.

“If we do end up having — actually, when we do have — a major incident, one of the major responsibilities of the stations is to do what they call a ‘windshield survey,’” he said. That involves units from each station examining their area of responsibility and reporting the worst of the damage, thus ensuring responders are quickly aware of and can get to the most serious issues first in the wake of a natural disaster.

“By having this station available now, we’re going to be able to provide information in the event of a disaster that much quicker,” Teran said. “You can imagine, without this station open the downtown station would have to help the core and then get to the north end, so this provides us that much more coverage for emergencies.”

The celebratory open house will take place at Station 23 (12985 Phelps Road) from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, and feature station tours, emergency preparedness information booths, light refreshments and a live equipment demonstration at 2 p.m.

“One of the key components of having this station open is the quick access we have to the 305,” Teran said. “We go to a number of accidents on the 305 and we’re going to show a demonstration with the ‘jaws of life’ and how we’d actually extricate someone from a vehicle who may be trapped.”

Firefighters will also be showing off some other tools, the chief said, in addition to guiding visitors through the newly-expanded building (the rear apparatus bay having been recently added on to as part of the necessary station upgrade).

“This is the community’s fire station,” he said. “We want to allow the community to come in and see the station’s staff.”