Recalled Boardman firefighters express relief after levy passage

By Denise Dick

The South Avenue fire station reopened Friday.

BOARDMAN — When six-year township fire department veterans Gary Hemphill and Jason Osborne were laid off last February along with seven of their co-workers, they weren’t sure they would ever be called back.

But Friday morning, both men were back at work at the main fire station after voters this week approved a 2.2-mill police and fire levy. The South Avenue fire station, closed for most shifts since the layoff, also reopened Friday.

Four more furloughed firefighters will return to work today and the township plans to hire up to 10 new police officers. Three other firefighters, nine road department workers and several police civilian employees remain on layoff status.

“It’s great,” Hemphill said of his return.

Both he and Osborne say they can’t compare their feelings the night layoffs were announced to those when Tuesday’s levy passed.

“It’s going from the lowest point of your life to a high point,” Hemphill said.

“You go from having a job you’ve had for years to nothing and then to having a full-time job again,” Osborne said.

While they’re glad to be back, Osborne, who is married and a father of three children, and Hemphill, married with two kids, were making other plans to ensure ends would meet.

Hemphill started going to school and will graduate with his paramedic license in May.

Friday he had an appointment to take a polygraph test and pre-employment examination to work for the Fairfax, Va., fire department. He canceled the appointment.

Osborne was hired shortly after the layoff by a police department in Virginia. When his family home proved difficult to sell, though, he opted for a yearlong assignment as a firefighter in southern Iraq instead.

The work was the same except firefighters there are surrounded by guards while at work and walls while at base.

“It’s not a safe area,” Osborne said. “It’s a war zone.”

He worked there for four months, planned his vacation around the election and was scheduled to fly back next week.

“The flight will go unbooked,” Osborne smiled. “There will be an empty seat on British Airways.”

Hemphill, along with other firefighters, went door-to-door before the election, informing residents about the levy. He concentrated in the area that was served by the South Avenue fire station.

The No. 1 question that people asked was whether the station would reopen if the levy passed and the second was about how trustees would use the money, he said.

Hemphill told them the station would reopen and that levy money was designated for police and fire.

While a 4.1-mill general operating levy tanked at the ballot in November 2007, the 2.2-mill police and fire levy passed in every township precinct this week.

Fire Chief James Dorman believes that people, who may have interpreted trustees’ warnings of financial difficulties as scare tactics last year, believed the reality after the cuts occurred.

Firefighters take some pride and satisfaction in the levy passage, the chief said.

“It shows that the citizens value fire service,” he said. “They really do value the service we provide.”

Harry Wolfe, firefighters’ union president, and trustees Larry Moliterno and Robyn Gallitto all say the levy passage is a first step to restoring services. Work remains to cut costs and search for alternative revenue streams, they said.

That has to be done with everyone working together, Wolfe said.

“We need to look at everything with a fresh set of eyes,” Moliterno said.

“And a really sharp pencil,” Gallitto added.

denise_dick@vindy.com