Fire Station 591 Opens in Olde Pickerington
The state-of-the-art facility opened June 29th to better serve ad protect Violet Township residents
Violet Township has built and opened its third fire station built in the last 25 years, located in the heart of Olde Pickerington., The now-functional station exhibit’s showing the community’s commitment to the well-being and safety of its residents. The station, first commissioned in 2014, was built to replace the old 591 fire station, which was built in 1953.
“The old station unfortunately had outlived its usefulness to us,” Fire Chief Michael J. Little remarkssays. “We had difficulty finding trucks that could fit the building. There was limited space for our personnel to sleep, eat, shower…, everything they normally do in 24- hour period.”
Multiple different sites were considered, both inside and outside of Pickerington, but the fire department decided to stay inside Olde Pickerington where the old station had been for over 60 years, indicatingsaying that they wanted to maintain their presence. The new 591 station was built directly across the street from the old station on Lockville Road, which was torn down and the area repurposed as the parking lot for the new 591.
“There’s a reason there’s a flag in the parking lot,” Little explainssays. “There’s a monument there that the Grange had in front of their own building and we have reincorporated that monument into the landscape of our parking area and the flag is lit every night and the monument is lit every night to honor the Grange.”
The city came together to help make this project a reality in several ways. The city donated the old plaza that used to stand where the new station is located. While the new building was still under construction, and the old building had been already torn downrazed, the Violet Township Service Center allowed the fire department to work out of a double- wide trailer located at on their property at 490 Center St.
“The first six months of it [the temporary relocation], they [the firefighters] were like just happy and giddy and it was really fun,” Little says. before adding, “And then when the realization set in that it was going to be a little longer than it was anticipated, it was kind of like being on top of each other.”
The temporary relocation to the double- wide trailer ended up lasting 18 months.
"It’s the community and the support we receive from the community that make it happen.” Michael J. Little
Every plan has its problems though, and 591 was no different. During the construction meeting with Robertson Construction, the company tasked with building the station, an AT&T representative informed the architects that there was a major AT&T fiber line that ran down the plaza, a fact that went overlooked by the builders, which set the project back in order to move the line. When it came time to dig toand lay the foundation, the construction workers found a natural spring under the surface of the old Pickerington Area Chamber of Commerce building.
“At the point in history when it was time for Violet tTownship to build a new fire station, they had difficult decisions to make,” Pickerington Mayor Lee Gray says. “Choosing to replace the fire station here was not the easiest decision. And a lot of people don’t know that. They were going to displace their firefighters. There were all kinds of issues that had to be worked through and quite frankly, it was going to be more expensive. The thing is when your making those decisions as an elected official you try to do what’s in your heart and what’s best for the community.”
The fire department moved out of the double- wide trailer and into the new building on May 17. The building offers 16,000 square fteet. in comparison to the 5,000 square ft.eet of the old 591 station. The Pickerington Chamber of Commerce will also work out of a few rooms located in the new building.
“Thank you to the community for making this happen. I don’t make it happen, the trustees don’t make it happen, it’s the community and the support we receive from the community that make it happen,” Little says.
“I’m hopeful that the firefighters can better serve the community out of this station,” Kevin Kellogg, pastor at Grace Fellowship Church, chaplain for the Violet Township Fire Department and former Violet Township firefighter, says. “It’s bigger, has the ability to house more equipment and better equipment and bigger equipment. They’re thankful for the community’s support so they just want to serve the community better.”
Fire Station 591 is located on 21 Lockville Rd. and offers a variety of services to the community including CPR/First Aid instruction as an American Heart Association Certified Training Center.
Evan Wehmeyer is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com
Save the Date: Annual Fire Department Open House
October 14, 2018
1-3 PM
This is always a huge day for our community! It is an event you and your family will not want to miss.
Mark your calendars and set your phones to remind you of this amazing family day!
New Website Launched
Violet Township has launched a new website, logo and tagline to help promote economic development. This state of the art website consolidates all economic development information into one user friendly site. Innovative tools allow visitors to quickly obtain demographic and workforce data, summaries of business incentive programs, details on the area’s infrastructure and other information utilized in site selection decisions.
Violet Township chose Golden Shovel Agency to create the website. The national economic development communications firm is recognized for its award winning design and expertise in business and workforce attraction.
Golden Shovel also created a tag line --- Growing Opportunity Together --- along with an economic development logo. The township will utilize the website, logo and tag line to tell the story of Violet Township and to market the community for economic development purposes.
“Our team enjoyed working with the Violet Township on this project. It’s an area poised for growth. The economic development portal we developed illustrates the region’s many opportunities and assets,” said Aaron Brossoit, CEO of Golden Shovel.
Violet Township is a vibrant community within a growing region. This website and marketing material will help the township to attract quality development that will increase its tax base to preserve and enhance the existing quality of life in Violet Township.
Visitors can view the website at www.investwithviolet.com.
The Future Community Center
The work on the feasibility study for a future Violet Township Community Center continues through a public engagement period. A public meeting was held in May and there were 175 people in attendance. We received many positive comments along with a number of questions and ideas that we have been addressing as we proceed with our study. We also identified frequently asked questions and have provided a FAQ document on our website.
A number of residents also signed up to be a part of a feasibility group to help us take a deeper dive into the needs for a community center. There were a series of 9 focus group meetings held over the month of June. These meetings focused on specific areas of interest such as youth sports, seniors, aquatics and other programming to name a few.
Each focus group has ranged from 5 – 20 individuals at each meeting and provided an opportunity for residents to meet directly with our consultant, Moody Nolan, to provide input. These focus group meetings have raised some new ideas that staff did not originally contemplate. Our consultant is now looking into the feasibility of the ideas generated through this process. Moody Nolan in cooperation with the township steering committee will be utilizing this feedback to explore various spatial and programming options.
While Moody Nolan has been working with the focus groups to study the spatial and programming needs, a Finance Task Force Committee has been meeting with Rockmill Financial to learn more about the way taxes work and the different options for funding a future community center. There have been between 30 and 40 residents in attendance at each of these meetings. This Finance Committee will ultimately create a funding package to recommend to the Township Trustees who will then decide to put the issue on the ballot.
We have created a page on our new Economic Development Website that is dedicated to the Community Center. On this page, you will find the FAQ document, meeting materials, periodic updates, and future meeting dates. We encourage you to visit this page on our website, which can be found at:
http://www.investwithviolet.com/about/community-center/?cat=Community+Center
We plan to hold a public meeting in August to provide an update on the study. Please stay tuned for meeting details through our website.
We Don’t Need Soap to Have Clean Streams
By Chad Lucht, Sr. Urban Specialist – Fairfield SWCD
As we strive to keep our streams clean so they are fishable and swimmable in the Blacklick Creek and Walnut Creek watersheds, we don’t need to use soap to do it.
Over the past several years, the Fairfield Soil & Water Conservation District has conducted random inspections of outfalls as part of Ohio EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. Outfalls could be a storm pipe or road ditch that take water directly to our local streams from roads, lawns, or downspouts. If during the inspection process flowing water was observed, a water sample was taken to test for the presence of soap. Unfortunately for our streams, some samples came back positive.
Where could the soap be coming from? A large majority of the homes located within the watersheds are connected to a central sanitary sewer system. Could it be from a washing machine located in a basement not connected to the homes sewage system? Maybe it is mop bucket water being dumped after somebody cleaned the floor? Or it’s just somebody who decides to wash their car on a nice day and it runs off to the street. These are called non-point discharges and we may never know where the source of the soap is coming from.
To continue to work to keep soap out of our streams so they remain fishable and swimmable, please keep these thoughts in mind. Is my washing machine properly connected to my homes sewage system? When I finish mopping the floor, I will dump the water into a sink. And if I decide to wash and wax my car instead of taking it to a local car wash, I will remember to park it in the grass and let the water soak into the ground.
These small steps will help reduce the potential of soap from entering our local stream.