ASHLAND — Orange Township in northern Ashland County hopes to use its local share of American Rescue Plan money to fund a new fire station.
The township’s total share of federal stimulus ARP money will reach $271,514, broken in two halves. Entities began receiving the first half of that in June and the next half will come in June this year.
Trustee Brian Canfield said the township’s intention is to use at least some of that money toward the construction of a new fire station, which is a project that has been in the works for years.
“We have tried several times,” Canfield said of funding a new building that would replace the current structure the township has used since 1952.
Canfield said the township attempted to pass levies in the past, but voters never supported the additional taxes. At one point, the new building was estimated to cost around $3 million, fire chief Harry Myer said.
“But we’re not trying for such an elaborate space this time,” Myer said. “We’re hoping to not be near as much.”
The chief, who was hired in 2021, said the current building is undersized. The space issue has been curbed somewhat by the township’s acquiring of an old gas station right across the road, where an ambulance and a pickup truck are stored.
“It would be nice to have everything in one building,” Myer said. “But we’re making do with what we have.”
The Orange Township Volunteer Fire Department covers fire and ambulance calls in a 36 square-mile area, with a population around 2,500 people. Myer said the 25 volunteers respond to around 300 calls a year.
For comparison’s sake, Ashland’s fire department covers a swath of 62 square-miles and responded to 4,341 calls in 2019. Its population is 20,390.
Orange employs three or four part-time positions at the station, but does not employ a full-time employee. The township is considering doing that, Myer said, noting the position would serve as both a medic and firefighter.
As for the building’s condition, Myer said it is not inspected.
“It’s not so much that it’s a disgrace,” he said. “It’s that what we have is we can’t fit modern-day trucks in it. We have to fit our purchases to the building rather than buying what we need.
“We don’t have the fancy buildings like some of the other areas.”
Myer said the township is in the process of starting an inspection program of all the buildings in the area. He said the township started with all the churches in the area and hopes to include the fire station at some point.
This story was written in response to a reader-submitted question through Open Source, a platform where readers can ask Ashland Source’s newsroom to investigate a question.
Here’s the original question, submitted by a reader who wished to remain anonymous: “Why is Orange Township not able to obtain funding to build a new fire station? The current building is a disgrace and in my opinion would certainly not pass a state code inspection.”
