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Firefighters union urges city to move forward with station projects

Local 92 posted to its downtown billboard reminding the city of leaking roofs. The city allocated millions of dollars to repair the department's facilities.

TOLEDO, Ohio — Toledo Firefighters Local 92 president Matt Tabb is making his frustration seen. The union's downtown billboard has a message calling on the city to get started on station repair projects that were discussed months ago.

"We've been working on this for a long time," Tabb said of the repairs. "I thought we were making progress and moving forward. It's just frustrating that everything's been put on a halt."

Pvt. Sterling Rahe, of the Toledo Fire and Rescue Department, said the city's pause in the projects is due to the large scale of the renovations and the millions of dollars involved. The city is looking to hire a manager to look over the entire project.

"Basically, bring in somebody with the expertise to manage a project of this size," Rahe said. "We're talking millions of dollars, different projects. Bringing in that expert makes sure that its done properly."

The city allocated millions of dollars towards the department for the purpose of repairs to things like leaking roofs, declining HVAC systems, and overall aging buildings.

Tabb says the hiring of a project manager is just another layer of bureaucracy keeping things from moving forward.

"Out of frustration, we put the sign up to show ... our roofs are still leaking," Tabb said.

Rahe said it isn't clear when the projects will move forward, but Tabb says the best-case scenario is for the station improvements to happen as soon as possible.

"If they at least got started, that would show good faith with the mayor's office that they have our concerns, they're hearing what we're saying, and they're making sure that it's getting done," Tabb said.

Rahe said he also hopes the project starts as soon as possible, but also said there's no indication from the city on when they might hire that project manager.

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