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Boardman fire department to get new truck
BOARDMAN
The township fire department will get a new firetruck to replace one that was totaled in an accident in November.
The board of trustees voted at a meeting Monday to approve the purchase of a 2015 truck at a cost of $471,213, which will be covered by an insurance settlement.
Fire Chief Mark Pitzer says he does not expect the truck to arrive until August or September, and in the meantime, the department will continue to use a rental truck.
Pitzer also reported to the board about the success so far of a new automatic mutual-aid agreement between the township and the Canfield Joint Fire District.
The agreement, the first of its kind for Boardman, started Feb. 1. Now whenever firefighters in one community are dispatched, a truck from the other department automatically will be dispatched to the scene.
The purpose of the agreement is to keep firefighters safe.
“If we have to rescue our own firefighters, we [now] have a team available to do so,” Pitzer said.
The agreement first came into play at a house fire on Indianola Road last week.
“They arrived right behind our Station 73 engine, and they were instrumental in helping us control the fire,” he said. “To this point, 10 days into it, it’s working out well.”
In other business Monday, trustees voted to rezone 191 properties in one area of the township from Residential R-2 to Residential R-1, which means that only single-family homes will be permitted in the area. The change will prevent new duplexes and apartments from moving into the zoning district.
The change is part of an ongoing effort by the zoning department to rezone about half of the township’s approximately 10,000 single-family dwellings so that their zoning district matches what they actually are. Existing multifamily residences in those neighborhoods will not be affected by the zone changes.
“We’re just trying to make the zoning match what was constructed to protect those neighborhoods,” Zoning Inspector Sarah Gartland said previously. “We’re not trying to prevent those [multifamily residence] areas. ... It’s good to have zoning controls in place that match the style of the neighborhoods.”