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Liberty Trustee: Comment wasn’t meant to irk Girard mayor
LIBERTY
Township Trustee Jodi Stoyak said she never meant to upset Girard Mayor Jim Melfi over a comment about inadequate water pressure at a fire hydrant.
But upset he is, saying Tues- day he’ll meet with the city’s fire chief and safety-service director about curtailing mutual aid to the township.
That aid, he says, is seldom reciprocated and is significantly increasing the overtime costs in Girard’s fire department because it calls in off-duty firefighters to assist other communities.
“That’s because we can’t leave the station empty,” Melfi said.
He said he also wants to take into account the strain on equipment, adding that the department’s $1 million ladder truck was damaged in a fire Dec. 20 at an abandoned motel in Liberty, the same fire in which the two entities are disputing there was a problem with pressure at the hydrant. The truck’s ladder collapsed.
He also said Liberty won’t be paying workers’ compensation claims if Girard firefighters get hurt at a township fire.
Melfi added the city used 400,000 gallons of water to fight the motel fire, which the township did not pay for. He said Liberty does not pay for water at the hydrants.
The water-pressure comment, he said, was not only irritating in view of everything the city does for the township, but it was inaccurate. He said the Girard department measured the hydrant the next day and read 90 pounds per square inch of water pressure there, a strong reading.
Stoyak said Liberty’s fire chief had told her there was not enough water pressure, and that’s why she made the comment.
“Mayor Melfi needs to calm himself a little bit,” she said. “It was one comment ’cause of something the fire chief said to me, and I wasn’t saying it to get under his skin.”
Stoyak said the hydrant was tested at 70 PSI.
She also said Girard, which serves half the township with water while Youngstown serves the other half, has had a history of low-pressure problems.
Stoyak said she is disappointed because she believes Melfi has made mutual aid a political issue when the real issue is about serving communities.
She said Liberty would still be there for Girard whenever it was called.