CORTLAND, Ohio - In a Thursday night work session, the mayor of Cortland laid out how the city can move forward with a safety service building.

The city has $2.15 million in grants from the Ohio Budget and Management Office that needs to be spent on a training facility by June of 2026.

Mayor Deidre Petrosky said to meet that deadline she's created what she's calling a small plan - use the OBM grant to renovate half of the current city administration building into a training room. Then, used $6 million in bonds to create a separate small fire station. In this plan, all city administration workers would have to work from home while the training room is being built - something some employees called impossible during the meeting. 

The other option is the big plan that’s already been laid out by an architect. It would use the OBM grant, with $6 million in bonds and a $4.5 million federal grant for one big safety complex for everyone. But, the catch is the city doesn’t know if they will be getting that federal money because of the current budget talks.

“My preference would be to get the 4 point 5 million dollars and build you guys the facility that you want,” Mayor Petrosky said to several fire fighters that attended the meeting. “If we don't get it, we're not going to be able to build the fire station that you guys have designed because we don't have enough money.”

Cortland’s Fire Chief, David Rea raised the idea of asking the OBM to extend the deadline of when they need to use that grant for the training room to give them more time to see if they can combine the state and federal money to meet everyone's needs. 

Council agreed to ask for the extension. They hope to have an answer by their meeting on Monday night giving them an indication of what plan they will go with.

Mayor Petrosky said no matter the plan, the service building will go on the land where the current city hall is.