Athens City Council members discussed a 13-acre land donation that could be used for new EMS headquarters at the Monday committee meeting.
If city council passes the ordinance allowing the donation, TS Tech, a company that makes seat covers for Honda, would donate the land to Athens. The land is at the end of Kenny Drive.
Along with a new EMS headquarters, the land would house a training area for the fire department. The fire training area will help with Athens’ insurance rating, Athens Mayor Steve Patterson said.
“EMS is interested in locating an EMS station there,” Patterson said. “They have to be able to respond within a certain time frame … and this would really help with being able to respond anywhere in the southwest quadrant of the county.”
The company has been looking to donate the property for two years. The process was discussed in depth by Honda’s board of directors in Japan before the donation was approved, Patterson said.
Patterson said he has partnered with Athens County EMS Chief Rick Callebs and Athens County Commissioners to discuss the possibility of putting EMS headquarters on the land.
Athens City Council and TS Tech have a mutual agreement about the land donation, Patterson said.
City council members also discussed approving funding for a proposed compost pilot program.
The program, created by Rural Action, will be a partnership with the City of Athens and Athens Hocking Recycling Center to begin collecting compost on the curb, Andrea Reany, a representative from Rural Action, said at the March 12 council meeting.
Up to 75 pilot program participants will be in each of Athens’ four wards. Each participant will receive a 5-gallon bucket that they will put out on the curb to be collected by the recycling center, Patterson said.
The pilot program would have a three-month recruitment period beginning in May that would include educational materials about the program.
After the recruitment period, the pilot program would last from August until January 2019. If successful, the citywide compost program would then begin in April 2020, Reany said.
Athens City Councilman Kent Butler, D-1st Ward, said the pilot would cost about $46,000.
“I think that this would be a really great model program,” Athens City Councilwoman Chris Fahl, D-4th Ward, said. “I think that establishing a skeleton of composting in the city not only will be educating people … but also it will help to be a model for other communities.”
