By Josh Jarman
The Columbus Dispatch
MILLERSPORT, Ohio — Walnut Township trustees unanimously agreed last night to negotiate with the Millersport Fire Department, heading off a looming battle over fire service in this Fairfield County village.
The decision, reached near the end of a public meeting that lasted more than two hours, was met with thunderous applause from the audience of about 200 people in the Millersport Elementary School auditorium.
The meeting was called after trustees presented a plan last week that would have broken the township’s current contract with the department, a steppingstone to creating a township fire department under trustees’ control.
Trustee President Alan “Sonny” Dupler had proposed giving Millersport 60 days’ notice of the township’s intent to terminate its contract with the village fire department. The plan would effectively close the department, which relies on funding from a township-wide, 6-mill property tax.
The township is served by the Millersport Fire Department, with stations in the village and one at Fairfield Beach on the south shore of Buckeye Lake, and the Thurston-Walnut Fire Department, in the southern half of the township. Last night’s meeting began with a discussion of what a joint fire district would look like but was quickly diverted after residents demanded to know the township trustees’ intentions for the existing contract that expires Dec. 31.
Trustee Terry Horn said he had never participated in a discussion to cancel the contract with the Millersport Fire Department.
Resident Steve Bush asked attendees to stand if they wanted to see the contract remain, which brought most of the crowd to their feet.
Dupler said that the fire fund would be short $40,000 to $65,000 this year, something Millersport Fire Chief Bill Yates dismissed. Village council members said the current contract short-changes the Millersport department, because the area it covers generates almost 75 percent of the tax revenue for both departments, but it receives only 60 percent of that money under the contract.
The township’s fire levy is expected to bring in $948,000 this year.
Village Councilman Dave Levacy asked whether the trustees would accept renegotiating the contract with an arbitrator, which brought a motion from Horn that the trustees do that. The motion passed unanimously.
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