Walton City Council held a public hearing Tuesday evening for residents to review and discuss a proposed fire and law enforcement training center, and it was a full house.
Mayor Gabe Brown proposed developing a training center on city property – 58 acres of land, including a 14-acre lake — off Church Street and Percival Road. The land was donated to the city by the late Dr. O’dell Owens, former Hamilton County coroner and president of Cincinnati State and Technical College.
Walton City Council voted to accept the donation in December 2020, and at the time it was publicly announced that the land would be developed into a park to be named Dr. O’dell Owens Park.
Since then, Walton has been preparing the property for public use, restocking the lake with fish and making plans to construct walking trails and pavilions. Earlier this year, however, Brown also proposed plans for building a new fire training center on the southeast end of the property off of Church Road. The city’s fire board approved the plans.
Now, plans have developed even further. Walton’s City Council hosted a public hearing to propose a new idea – constructing a joint fire and law enforcement training center that would be located on 11 acres at the far northeast corner of the property, off Powell Lane.
“I believe it will add to [Owens’] legacy,” Brown said.
The training center would include multiple classrooms, a burn building, various training and vehicle maneuvering areas, and an indoor gun range. The facility would be used for Walton Fire Department and law enforcement trainees across Northern Kentucky.
There are still plans to develop the park as well, including s a fishing dock, a kayak and canoe launch site, a playground, a rock-climbing area, and a large area designated for disc golf.
In the three-hour public hearing, many residents asked about the costs and benefits it would bring to the city, particularly financially.
Walton Fire Chief Joey Vest said that by constructing the training center, Walton and Northern Kentucky can save hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars annually.
According to Vest and Lt. Col. Brad Degenhardt, the president of the Northern Kentucky Police Chiefs Association, fire and law enforcement trainees can currently only do their training at Bowling Green or Eastern Kentucky University. It can be extremely costly to finance the travel, housing, meal and training expenses. Using a training center in Walton would eliminate much of those expenses.
However, there is no expected financial income for Walton from the facility, and some residents voiced concerns with the cost of construction.
According to Brown, the city and the fire department are seeking out grants to fund the entire facility’s construction at no cost to taxpayers. However, the only holdup is that the facility is not eligible for grant funding until City council approves construction plans.
Not all residents were convinced they wouldn’t end up paying the price for the facility’s construction.
“I’m concerned about how it’s going to all work out,” said resident Paul Washburn. “I think there’s a lot of ideas, but the actual execution seems uncertain to me. We don’t want Walton to be taken advantage of.”
Others felt confident that the facility would be a welcome addition to the city.
Phyllis Sparks, a longtime friend of Owens, said that she was aware of the land acreage when it was first bought and that Owens saw the “potential of what they could do about it.”
Sparks said she believes that the facility could benefit Walton because officers wouldn’t need to take shifts off to train far away.
“We shouldn’t stand in the way of training,” she said.
Former Walton city councilman Howard Stevens echoed similar support.
“I came to this meeting because I didn’t have all the information,” he said. “Now that I’ve gotten a little bit more information and I understand this more, I would say that I’d probably be for the project.”
Throughout most of the public forum, though, residents raised questions about how the training center would impact other parts of their lives.
Jodi Farmer, who has had her house flooded with sewage twice in the last year due to power outages in the city, said that she is concerned the same thing may happen to others if construction requires changing power and sewer lines.
“These changes that we’re speaking of being made to the power and sewage, how’s it going to affect people in this area? Is it going to affect them the same way that is happening to me?” she said. “I guarantee you these changes can very well affect somebody else.”
Another resident, who wishes to remain anonymous as her family considers relocating if the resolution for the training center is passed, said her property borders the donated land and that she is worried about the volume of noise that may come from the facility.
“I am in complete support of the fire department and the police department, I’m very glad to pay taxes for their services, but I just don’t want their shooting range 250 feet from my house,” she said.
According to Walton noise ordinances, the use of firearms in daytime hours is exempt from the city’s noise regulations. However, she plans to begin homeschooling her oldest child in the fall, which may provide recourse for noise complaints she has, as the noise ordinance also states that excessive noise on any street adjacent to a school or institution of learning may be grounds for “loud, disturbing and unnecessary” noises.
City council will convene again on June 27 to vote on the resolution for the training facility, and ultimately, she hopes that they take Walton residents’ opinions into consideration.
“If the council decides to vote in favor to build, it doesn’t seem like that is consistent with the desires of the community,” she said.