HARTFORD - Township residents are hoping to put the brakes on Fireball Truck Nite.
About 65 people showed up Wednesday night at a township trustees meeting, where they presented a petition to put the proposed attraction on the May ballot. They want to keep Fireball Truck Nite from using a plot in the township.
Michael O'Donnell, 2907 Bushnell Campbell Road, said they needed to collect signatures from 8 percent of registered voters - meaning 74 signatures - to get the issue on the ballot. They received about 160 signatures, he said.
"They showed up at my barn. We didn't go out and get people to sign. They showed up," O'Donnell said. "That's our first step. We will get this beat, and then we will come after the people who supported this. We're not going to take this lying down."
About 12 people at the meeting spoke out against the truck night, which they said would be a noisy nuisance, bring too much traffic to the area, disrupt area wildlife and possibly find a way to sell alcohol in the dry town.
A piece of land along Warner Road in Hartford will become the site for Fireball Truck Nite come springtime if everything goes according to organizers' plan.
O'Donnell said he blames the board of trustees for allowing the truck night because they appoint those who make up the zoning commission. He said he will form a political action group to try and oppose board members.
Board members, however, continuously stated to the gathering that, although the board does appoint those in the zoning commission, they do not control that departments actions.
Board Chairwoman Rebecca J. Whitman said the board of trustees cannot be faulted for the actions of a separate committee.
"I've heard a lot of comments that it was the trustees fault because they appointed those people," Whitman said. "The (zoning committee) has a job to do. Some of those people have been there for eight years or so... They have the responsibility to interpret the zoning resolution as it is and they have a responsibility to make the correct decision. When we appoint those people, I would have no idea eight years down the road what there decision is going to be on a particular item."
Any of the complaints or concerns raised by local residents comes as a surprise to Joe Fire, the man behind Fireball Truck Nites.
''Not one,'' Fire said of the complaints he has received due to his plans. ''I've had hundreds of people contact me since then and they are happy that we are planning to do this.''
Fire has experience running truck nights and hopes to have found a permanent home in Hartford.
''Seven years ago, we created Fireball Truck Nite at Yankee Lake,'' Fire said. ''Two years after that, we relocated it and ran it for the following three years off route 82 in Brookfield. We've been searching for a property to build a permanent long lasting event.''
The site off Warner Road in the township has been zoned as residential/agricultural, which made the need for a use variance essential if Fire wanted to hold his truck event there.
''The property in Hartford that we have been pursuing was formerly a dumping ground for the Youngstown Sheet and Tube...they used it for a slag pit,'' Fire said.
''We were looking for another piece of property that was already ruined. It's not like we are trying to change or spot zone. It's already a piece of property that has been looked at for a landfill,'' Fire said.
One property owner, Chuck Matthews, whose Massasaugh Rattlesnake Ranch Inc., property spans 1,350 acres and borders the area to the north and east of where the proposed Truck Night would take place.
Matthews said he is worried that trucks will spill onto his property because the land that borders the Truck Nite site and his property spans about three-quarters of a mile. He said the Cleveland Musueum of Natural History declared his property "pristine," meaning that its classified as a conservation easement because several rare animal and vegetation on the property, including a wood turtle, a bald eagle, a three-toed salamander, a bug-on-a-stick and the American chestnut.
Fire said he plans to have the truck event up and running by the spring, for now.
''We still have a lot of work to do. We don't have everything in order yet, but we are working toward that,'' Fire said. ''All we're trying to do is recreate Fireball Truck Night and everywhere I go people are excited that we are going to be back.''