COLERAIN TOWNSHIP, Ohio — An hour before the Little Cardinals football team gathered for practice at their field in Goesbeck Park, Colerain Township leaders stood in the same place for the official groundbreaking ceremony for the brand-new Fire Station 26.
Construction of the new fire station would destroy the field and facilities the youth football team uses. A few dozen parents and kids protested the move, waving signs and chanting "Save our field!" from behind the speakers' podium during the ceremony.
"These kids don't have no gym to go to," said Barrell Brown, one of the parents protesting the construction of Station 26. "There's no neighborhood gym. We've got a Y, but half these kids can't afford that."
Brown said practice and games with the Little Cards give at-risk youth positive things to channel their energy into.
"For kids to have a safe haven, this is it," he said. "In this day and age with all the violence taking place, it is important that these kids have a place to go and feel safe."
Township Trustee Matt Wahlert said Station 26 would serve as the center of the community and become an enhanced civic space.
Fire Chief Allen Walls said the improved area will help prevent illegal dumping, drug use and other crimes at the park — including two particularly ironic examples for an area soon to call a fire station home.
"We have had an arson fire in the press box, and three months ago we had an arson fire down in the bathroom," Walls said.
Walls said the more modernized fire station would make the firefighters safer and a 24-hour facility in the Goesbeck region would improve response times.
"We'll actually decrease our response times to one of the more impoverished neighborhoods that we have simply by being here," Walls said.
Brown agreed that enhanced fire protections in the area would be nice, but wondered what would happen to the approximately 400 football players and cheerleaders displaced from the park.
"A fire station is important, but so is these kids' lives and giving them somewhere to go. Now where do they go? Where do they go?" he asked.
Walls said the town was working to coordinate a deal between the Little Cards and the St. Ann School which owns a field near Goesbeck Park to serve as the team's new home.
A Colerain Township official said construction of Station 26 would begin within the week and is expected to finish in August 2024.
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