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Liberty fire station on wish list
liberty
With one of Liberty Township’s two fire stations closed now to save money, the idea of a central fire station has been brought up as an obvious solution.
It isn’t the first time. Officials of the cash-strapped township have thought before that closing and selling the stations on Logan Way and Belmont Avenue and building a new station — with equal distance in response times to everywhere — would be a money-saver.
They had the land to build it. An acre on East Liberty Street was donated to the township in 2005, and it also has 9 acres near the administration building on state Route 304.
Township officials even had what they thought was a good chance at getting a grant to build a station in 2009, when the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February that year made funding available.
“The township applied, and I spent a lot of time and personal money, and we didn’t get it,” said Jason Rubin, who is now township trustee chairman but at the time was a private resident on a committee to help secure the grant.
An ARRA grant in Trumbull County to build a fire station was instead awarded to Bristol Township, which has a population of 3,154 vs. Liberty’s 21,982, according to the 2000 census. Bristol also has a volunteer fire department while Liberty’s is a full-time department.
Bristol received $2,235,191.
“Bristol got all the grant money,” said trustee Jodi Stoyak, adding that Liberty’s station was going to cost $1 million, not $2 million.
After the township didn’t get the grant, it sold the donated property on East Liberty Street, Stoyak said.
Besides the land on Route 304, there also is land available in the Trumbull County land bank where the fire department did a practice burn on old apartments on Naylor Lloyd Road last year, Rubin said.
But, Rubin said, he doesn’t foresee the township having the money to build a new station, which he estimates would cost $1.5 million, anytime soon.
He says he knows of no other grants available.
Stoyak said the benefits of one fire station would be great.
“As a taxpayer, I’d rather see that money go to equipment or another firefighter than pouring that money into utilities,” she said.
“Also, we have one female firefighter, and she should have her own quarters. She doesn’t as of right now, though we manage.”
The Belmont Avenue fire station closed July 17 because township fiscal officer Steve Shelton projected a possible deficit of $225,000 in the fire department’s budget at the end of 2015.