The Columbus Dispatch
FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Austin Kwon walked out of the Franklin Township meeting hall tonight a decorated firefighter.
Friday morning, the 34-year-old becomes an unemployed husband with a baby due in February.
“I’ve applied to other (fire) departments, and some places even as a police officer,” Kwon said tonight, adding as he walked away, “I don’t know how I’m going to afford insurance.”
Kwon and four other township firefighters, including Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient Paul Shambaugh, were casualties of voters rejecting a township fire levy on Tuesday.
An emotional Fire Chief Rick Howard said it was “with great sadness” that he announced the layoffs of the five, who lined the wall in dress uniforms in a crowded meeting room tonight. Residents came in support of those losing their jobs.
With the defeat of the levy and the fire department facing a $700,000 shortfall, Howard said there would be no more overtime paid to fully staff the township’s two engines and two medics. With the five layoffs and other vacancies, the department has lost about one-third of its manpower.
He said he has alerted fire chiefs in Columbus and surrounding cities and townships that they might have to respond to fires and medic runs in Franklin Township.
“They know what’s going on,” Howard said.
Columbus and the surrounding suburbs and townships have an automatic-response agreement requiring the closest station to answer a call regardless of jurisdiction.
Columbus fire officials have said they will step up coverage in Franklin Township as well as its southwestern neighborhoods. Most of Franklin Township’s runs have been into those city neighborhoods.
Response times from outside fire departments into Franklin Township could be longer, Howard told the crowd of about 50.
“Once you take a domino out of the mix, you have to take the next one that might be two or three minutes down the road,” he said.
The election was a contentious one because one of the three township trustees, Tim Guyton, actively campaigned against the tax issue, which lost by 175 votes. Voters also rejected two fire levies last year by margins of 20 votes and six votes.
Guyton said he opposed the 5.12-mill levy because it sought too much money — $800,000 a year — and would have been permanent.
Board Chairman Don Cook said the township’s general fund, which was recently tapped to cover a $150,000 fire department payroll, can no longer afford to subsidize the fire fund.
Cook, fellow Trustee John Fleshman and some audience members criticized Guyton at tonight’s meeting for “all of a sudden” voting against permanent levies.
Fleshman said Guyton, who used to be board chairman, voted against the levy because he wasn’t getting his way on other issues.
Several times during the meeting, Guyton said that he supports the township’s fire, police and road employees, but also said, “I was elected to represent the taxpayers” and that the township needs to live within its means.
He said he will propose a levy for the May ballot that would last only five years and seek a total of $550,000 for both the fire and police departments.
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