Medina wrestles with cost of updating fire department equipment, fire hall

Union expresses disappointment with delays, downsized addition to fire station

Photos by Tom Rivers: (Left) Medina Fire Chief Matt Jackson speaks during Monday’s Village Board meeting, sharing his concerns about aging fire trucks. (Right) Stephen Miller, president  of Medina Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 2161, said the union “has lost faith in the village leadership.”

MEDINA – The Village Board heard impassioned pleas from residents and the firefighters’ union on Monday, with residents worried that taxes are too high and pushing people out of their homes.

The union said the fire department has at least two fire trucks that should be replaced and soon be put out of service. The firefighters’ union president, Stephen Miller, also said the recent move to drastically downscale an upgrade and addition to the fire hall is inadequate and doesn’t meet the operational needs of the department.

“The membership has lost faith in the village leadership,” Miller said during a meeting Monday in a packed meeting room at the Ridgeway Town Hall. Many firefighters stood in the hallway because there wasn’t enough chairs and space in the main room.

He urged the board to take immediate action on upgrading the fire hall and the apparatus.

Miller said delays in moving forward with needed upgrades have resulted in much higher costs.

Jason Bessel, a Ridgeway firefighter, said the costs of new fire trucks have dramatically risen in recent years. Ridgeway just received a new fire engine for $860,000. Bessel said it was a five-year process to get the truck.

Medina’s ladder truck is 29 years old. One of the fire engines is 31 years old. The fire department pushed years ago to start the process of getting a new ladder truck. Miller said the cost in 2021 was projected at $1.3 million. When the board voted on getting a new one in June 2023, the cost jumped to $1.7 million.

The fire department also has been urging the board to fix a series of problems in the current fire hall, and also put on an addition needed for a new ladder truck. The new ladder trucks are bigger than the one from 1996, which already barely fits in the fire hall.

The board was expecting $4.5 million to fix the current fire hall and put on a two-bay addition. But the projections came in over $6 million, prompting the board to scale down the project to a one-bay addition only without addressing the shortcomings in the current fire hall. That one-bay addition is projected at $1,041,590.

But even the $1 million cost will be hard on village taxpayers, said Trustee Debbie Padoleski. Paying for that addition, plus the new ladder truck, will overwhelm many taxpayers who Padoleski already said are stressed in their village taxes.

“I know in talking with taxpayers in this village they are ready to look at a new way of doing business,” Padoleski said.

She is open to looking at a fire district which would move the fire department out of the village budget and into its own taxing jurisdiction. Medina FD could perhaps join with nearby volunteer fire companies in a larger joint district.

Padoleski said Medina’s Fire Department, the only one with paid staff in the county, provides extensive mutual aid to other towns, including with the ladder truck, yet the village is left to foot the bill for the fire department.

“The village pays too much for fire service compared to the towns,” Padoleski said. “We need a financially equitable solution from the county.”

Trustee Jess Marciano said the village needs to keep the pressure on the County Legislature to significantly increase how it shares the local sales tax. The county hasn’t increased the amount to the local towns and villages since 2001, despite the sales tax revenues more than doubling in that time.

The village will get $159,630 of the sales tax in 2025 out of a total expected to be around $23 million this year. That is less than 1 percent for Medina of the total local sales tax in the county.

“This is not sustainable,” Marciano said about the continued freeze in funding. “We are all neighbors. They ought to be listening to us.”

The county needs to increase the amount of sales tax for the towns and villages to help them keep up with the costs of equipment and personnel.

The Medina Fire Department brought a fire engine and ambulance to the board meeting on Monday, which was held at the Ridgeway Town hall. The Medina Historical Society is next to the town hall. Firefighters are urging the Village Board to find a way to update equipment and the facilities for the fire department.

Linda Limina, a village resident and member of the Shelby Town Board, says the taxpayers are struggling and some can’t even pay their water bills. Medina needs to find a better way to upgrade needed equipment without overburdening the village taxpayers, Limina said.

Mayor Marguerite Sherman said the Village Board has an obligation to firefighters and the police officers to provide them with safe and reliable equipment, especially when they are risking their lives in dangerous professions. That is not only police cars and fire trucks, but air packs and bullet-proof vests, Sherman said.

“I don’t want to raise taxes,” Sherman said. “But we need a fire truck and ambulance to show up in an emergency.”

The ladder truck is expected to arrive around Christmas in about 10 months. Marciano said the village can figure out where to keep it in the short term until an addition is ready, likely in early 2026.

Sherman said she will present the financial numbers on the projected annual debt service payments for the ladder truck and the addition during the next board meeting, March 10.

She said she is also pursuing grants for the truck and addition, but there won’t be a commitment on that for many months, if at all.

Sherman said the village faces other needs, from upgrading water and sewer lines, police cars and improvements to Boxwood Cemetery.

“There is a lot,” she said about the issues facing the village.

The board will soon be focusing on the village budget for 2025-26. That spending plan needs to be adopted by April 30.