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Cardinal Joint Fire District deciding between two pieces of land for a third fire station
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
The Cardinal Joint Fire District is looking at two pieces of land for a third fire station.
The CJFD Fire Board met Saturday morning to talk about the project. Last November, Canfield voters supported a permanent levy for the operation of a third fire house to be built in the northwest quadrant of Canfield.
This is a 1.25-mill levy generating $627,854 annually. It costs the owner of a $100,000 home $43.75 per year. The fire district serves both Canfield city and township.
The board has a regularly scheduled meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the Canfield Township Hall, 21 S. Broad St., and will vote on a contract with its architect, Balog, Steines, Hendricks and Manchester Architects Inc. of Youngs-town.
About half of Saturday’s meeting was spent discussing whether a road would have to be built connecting the fire house property to Herbert Road. Both pieces of land are on that road that includes both city and township land.
One piece would be a lease with the current property owner, while another piece would be purchasing the land outright.
Fire Chief Don Hutchison said the two properties are about the same amount of land and within a half-mile from each other on Herbert Road. The soil was tested at both sites and were graded similarly.
The fire district rents its current firehouses for $1 a year as one is city-owned property, the third floor of Canfield City Hall, 104 S. Lisbon St.; and the other is township-owned land on Messerly Road.
“I guess we just hit more obstacles than we thought, and we’ve just had to have more meetings,” Hutchison said. He further said the board hopes to have the property decision made by the end of the summer.
CJFD board member Andy Skrobola, a former Canfield city councilman, emphasized the need to keep the project moving forward.
“It’s keeping motion and getting these things achieved, so we at least have something going on, and right now we’re stuck in limbo,” he said.
Skrobola and CJFD board attorney Chip Comstock, also the fire chief of the Western Reserve Joint Fire District in Poland, plan to meet with Canfield city Manager Joe Warino and city Attorney Mark Fortunato over the coming weeks to determine if a road would need to be built.
Canfield Township Trustee Marie Cartwright, a fire board member, said building a road would “become expensive.”
The board also discussed pursuing a project manager that would handle the day-to-day decisions when the construction process begins.