For years, one of the dreams of Clinton County EMA officials was to have their own training center located in Frankfort. Now, it looks like that venture is about to get off the ground and come to fruition.
“Emergency Management Agency Director Darrell Sanders has been instrumental in trying to get a program set up with EMA for all public safety personnel in Clinton County,” said Matt Stidham, who has been a part of Fire Service for 22 years. “The costs were always the problem as the cost usually was in the $500,000 plus range.”
With a big assistance from Jeff Rustin of Excel Tool in Kirklin as well as some donations for several individuals and businesses, Stidham says the time is now to get a facility up and going.
“We’re starting to get donations from local businesses and have a little of cash on hand,” said Stidham. “I think we’re going to be able to break ground in the next 30 days and start having some of these pieces that we have put together.”
What they have right now is three of the 10 module-like containers they are going to use to get this facility up and running.
“This is about the impact we can have on all the lives of citizens in our community,” said Stidham, who along with Rustin has talked to almost every city and county official and agency in Clinton County.
The facility will be built at the EMA facility site in Clinton County. EMA will also be overseeing the project once its done.
Another reason to build the facility here is to save money from having to pay overtime to local and county members of fire, police, EMA, EMS and other public safety entities to do their training outside of Clinton County. Recently, Rustin told Stidham that there was almost a million dollars worth of Clinton County equipment and personnel in another county doing those things there and not in Clinton County. That bore the thought of how can Clinton County keep those resources here and not send them outside of the community.
The hope is to have training be done in Clinton County and eventually be able to train individuals for roof ventilations, HAZMAT situations, active shooters, as well as to be able to breach windows and doors. There is also talk of this becoming a training site for others outside the county as well as a possible satellite office for the state.
“This would be utilized for all of public safety,” said Stidham, who said a five-foot tower would be attached to the facility to aid with training.
Another plus for the training center is the cost would now be around $140,000.
“We need to be able to train all of our personnel locally and that we can save lives,” said Stidham. “That’s the biggest goal we have. We’re going to have the ability to save people’s lives.”
Anyone interested in donating to the training center or wanting more information about the project, they can go to [email protected].