Fire Lieutenant Has Plan for an Expanded Safety Village

Mentor Fire Lt. Don Zimmerman learned the power of safety education 11 years ago.

At the time, he visited elementary school classes and taught them the basics of fire safety, including why houses should have working smoke detectors.

After one class, two young girls went home and bugged their father to get a smoke detector, Zimmerman recalled. Soon thereafter, their house did catch on fire and the smoke detector warned them in time for everyone to escape.

"In this room, I swore to protect lives," Zimmerman told Mentor City Council on Tuesday. "I didn't realize until then that you could do it in a classroom, as well as from a fire truck."

Since then, Zimmerman has spearheaded the Mentor Safety Village where kids can learn boating safety from a  and safe driving tips from a reconverted fire truck.

Zimmerman doesn't do it alone. He has a group of firefighters, many of whom are retired, who donate their time and money to teach kids about safety in new and innovative ways.

"He's the sparkplug," Mentor Fire Chief Richard Harvey said, "the bolt of lightning, the inspiration, whatever you want to call it for Mentor Safety Village."

It takes a village

Zimmerman pitched ideas for an expanded safety village to Mentor City Council Tuesday.

It would still be at the Old Village Center on Jackson Street, but it would also use the Old Village Hall and a storage garage on the property.

More importantly, it would incorporate safety education from the Mentor Police Department and Safety Town, which is run by the Junior Women's Club of Mentor.

"I'm just trying to organize all of the safety information for fire and police so we can have it at one location," Zimmerman said.

He has several ideas for improvements. Some of them are big and some are more humble. For example, he wants to:

• reconvert the storage garage on property into a facsimile of a police department – complete with jail, control room and older police equipment that the children could learn about.
• add an electric train, similar to the one at Penitentiary Glen, except it would be passengerless. It could be used to teach visitors train safety, he said.
• add a lunch pavilion that would be made entirely of recycled materials and could double as a recycling education center. "Right now, we teach the kids to recycle and then they eat lunch and throw away all of their trash," Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman realizes there are obstacles to some of his plans.

For example, parking easements would need to be granted. Equipment that is kept in the storage garage would need to be moved. Also, this expansion would not be free.

Zimmerman said the entire project might cost about $1.2 million, with the lion's share of that going to the installation of underground utilities that would be needed for the stoplights and crossing signs on the track.

But none of these obstacles are insurmountable, he said.

When Zimmerman spoke to City Council, Council President Robert Shiner said he liked the idea but then asked, "Is it feasible?"

Mentor City Manager Ken Filipiak responded, "I feel we could get a lot of this funded through private sources (and) through grant sources."

Zimmerman said he would not ask for a $1.2 million check from the taxpayers. He has written grants that provided the seed money for Arko's Ark and several other projects. He thinks grant money would be available for the expanded safety village, also.

Additionally, he's spoken with several prospective sponsors and has more that he intends to speak with.

While any timetable would be hypothetical at this point, Zimmerman said he thinks the expanded village could be completed in five years.

"I told my wife before that I thought I would be dead before any of this would happen," Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman added that he feels reinvigorated with the support from the city administration and council.

"Now, we officially have word from the city saying, 'We support the next logical step,'" he said.