However, since loan was taken out on Dec. 4, 2013, the township’s leadership has been a revolving door until 2016: three people were either the administrator or interim administrator and eight people have served on the board of trustees.
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This current board of trustees in 2016 elected to pay off $1 million of the $5 million loan, and just last month decided to pay off the remaining $4 million without proceeding on a new fire station.
That initial 2013 loan, which was due on Friday, June 2, ended up costing the township $196,968.27, according to Fairfield Twp. Fiscal Officer Nancy Bock.
"Repaying the note should not be viewed as a shift in priorities," said Fairfield Twp. Trustee President Susan Berding, who was appointed in April 2016. "The fire house is still a top priority, but we must ensure the end result meets our needs now and well into the future."
Trustee Shannon Hartkemeyer said the Tylersville Road fire house “has served it’s purpose” and she is grateful the township was able to re-purpose an 1856-built school house into a fire station back in the late 1940s.
PHOTOS: Fairfield Twp.'s undersized fire station
Fire chief Tim Thomas previously told the Journal-News said the fire station’s conditions are “horrendous” as storage bins are stowed in a narrow hallway, co-ed sleeping quarters, an inadequate driveway, and fire engines need to be specially ordered smaller in order to fit in the bays.
“The board unanimously felt it was within the township’s best interest to repay the note now,” Berding said.
The fiscally sound decision, Berding said, was to repay the short-term debt and not take on additional interest payments by rolling the note into long-term debt. She said there is no land at this point under contract to build a new fire station — though township officials told the Journal-News they have ideas but no concrete locations.
Hartkemeyer said there are “two viable” land options along the Gilmore Road area which would “support the needs” of the township’s older and newer neighborhoods, and the future development of the area.
The township recently secured a deal with the city of Hamilton and Butler County with a joint economic development district that would bring utilities to that Gilmore Road area.
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