HOWLAND — The township’s fire chief is looking to help centralize training for the area’s emergency personnel in collaboration with other counties, thanks to a project through the state.

Trustees at Wednesday’s regular meeting approved applying for a 136th General Assembly Capital Budget Community Project for the Trumbull County Regional Fire Training Facility, a $750,000 project with no township match.

Chief Ray Pace said he’s working on the project with several counties — Geauga, Ashtabula and Portage — adding that he had to receive letters of support.

Pace said the fire department received six of them, from the Trumbull County Fire Chiefs’ Association and each county’s emergency management agency.

“Our technical school, Trumbull Career & Technical Center, did obtain a letter of support from Ashtabula’s technical center as well,” Pace said.

Pace said the department had a burn building it used in the past because they run the Howland Fire and EMS Training Center, but it was decommissioned after 14 years because it was no longer safe to use.

“This is us applying for capital funds from the state level to be able to have a regional training facility that not only our county would be able to use and train in, and it would support our training center,” Pace said. “All the county’s firefighters and then other counties’ firefighters, as well. We could train across jurisdictional lines, across county lines.”

In other action, the board:

• Approved a special meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 29, to host State Reps. Nick Santucci, Dave Thomas and the Trumbull County Commissioners, with the intention of continuing discussions about property tax impacts and homestead and occupancy rollbacks.

• Approved Harrington, Hoppe and Mitchell, LTD. as additional legal counsel for the township.

• Approved continuing the township’s participation in the county’s electric aggregate with Dynegy Energy Services LLC at their retail price of $0.1014/kWh.

• Approved rejecting the rezoning of two parcels on 4248 North River Road from Corridor Review District-1 to Commercial.

• Approved a stormwater drainage facilities inspection and maintenance agreement between the township and NNN Reit Inc, for the long-term maintenance of facilities at the new 7Brew location.

• Approved hiring Aeydin Penick as a full-time patrolman, effective April 1.

• Approved applying for the Ohio Department of Public Safety Division of EMS 2026-27 P1-Training and Equipment Reimbursement Grant.