EWFD waiting for November election

BAUGHMAN TWP. -- Though the East Wayne Fire District board had verbally agreed to shoot for May to attempt to pass a fire levy to fund the district, the board decided to take a step back and gather information before trying again.

Sugar Creek Township Trustee Craig Limbach said trustees want to send out a questionnaire to township residents before moving forward.

"We want to get a questionnaire out there to the whole township (about) this levy," Limbach said. "Is it levy amounts, is it how it's put together, is it the entities that are in it? We want to try and get some feedback there before we make a decision."

Baughman Township trustees said they were passing around the idea to survey their residents as well.

With the data collected from the questionnaires, that will help the EWFD board decide how to better educate residents in order to pass a fire levy next year.

"The problem I see coming is we got 40 percent turnout for the vote, and we were the highest in the county for a vote, so I don't expect a big response on the questionnaire," Limbach said. "But I could be wrong."

Limbach said he also wants to hear residents' opinion on possibly creating a separate district the Kidron Volunteer Fire Department would be servicing.

In a perfect world, board members said they would like to have results in and configured by March, which could allow the board to register the levy for the November election, which is the same election as the gubernatorial race.

"Even though it seems like you may have a lot of time, that's going to take two to three months by the time you start formulating it, mailing it out, get it back ... it's not going to turn over in 30 days," EWFD board member Greg Kutz said. "That whole process needs to start turning now in order to get something ... by March, where you have some data and you can start looking at it."

Another thing the board said will help a second try at passing a fire levy is combining the Marshallville Fire Department and Dalton Volunteer Fire Department to create the EWFD department.

"(As) the East Wayne Fire department moves forward, and is funded by contracts from the entities, by the end of the year, we'll have a much better handle on actual costs," Grimes said.

Marshallville council verbally agreed to combine the departments, but no resolution has been passed to that effect at this time.

Kutz said although Dalton council meets next week and most likely will agree to combining the departments, it has no say in the matter since the DVFD is a private department.

"We contract with them. If they want to change their name, and they want to merge, there's no symbiotic relationship with the fire department and the village," Kutz said, noting DVFD decides if it will combine with the EWFD.

On the other hand, Kutz said he doesn't see any kind of opposition from council to combine the two.

In addition to passing a motion to allow the two departments to combine, Kutz said council most likely will re-appoint at large member Mike Finney to the EWFD board.

Kutz said he and the mayor of Dalton discussed reappointing Finney for the at large board member Tuesday, as long as Finney wanted to accept the reappointment. Kutz said he will make a recommendation to council offering Finney as the seat at the EWFD council meeting Monday.

Before the two departments combine, Marshallville fire Chief Mike Bell said he wanted to set up a time to discuss insurance options with Volunteer Firemen's Insurance Services, a company both MFD and DVFD are insured by.

"They said there probably won't be savings, but it definitely won't go up," Bell said. "To merge two plans, it'll be one-plus-one equals two."

A regional spokesperson has been tentatively scheduled to talk to the board at the EWFD board re-organizational meeting Jan. 14 at 7 p.m.

Contact Abby Armbruster at 330-287-1632 or email her at aarmbruster@the-daily-record.com. Follow her on Twitter @abbyarmbruster.