FAIRPORT HARBOR, Ohio — Fairport Harbor is a small village on the shores of Lake Erie. The quaint community has a little more than 3,100 residents.
“We see a big seasonal population in the summer. The Metroparks beach is the second busiest in the county, in the whole system, it gets over 300,000 visitors,” said Fairport Harbor Fire Chief Bob Lloyd.
Come Election Day, residents in Lake County will decide on a fire levy and a police levy. According to the Lake County Auditor’s office, each levy is five years, 5.25 mills. According to the Lake County Auditor’s Office, if approved, each would generate $357,000 a year, costing $184 annually in residential property valuation.
The Fairport Harbor Fire Department has three full-time and 15 part-time firefighters and paramedics to answer roughly 1,300 calls a year, said Lloyd. He said more firefighters and paramedics are needed, especially since the Coast Guard station cut back on hours and the fire department is helping to pick up the slack.
“The current full-timers are working about 800 hours of overtime a year, so that creates a strain on them; it creates a strain on the budget,” Lloyd said.
At the Fairport Harbor Police Department, there are five full-time and five part-time officers.
“The way our call volume is and the population growing here in our community we’re actually almost running at a skeleton crew, at times here we have one officer on a shift,” said Fairport Harbor Police Chief David Koran.
If voters approve the police levy, he said that money would be used to cover additional officers, retaining officers, equipment and training.
Lukas Darling is Fairport Harbor Village Manager; he said it costs more to run the village, just like it costs more to run a household.
“Over the last several years we’ve had major increases in costs,” Darling explained. “Every bill that comes in, we’re feeling it, it is higher,” said Darling.
