April 7, 2026

Open Letter to Celina City Council and Administration-

To: Mayor Jeff Hazel, City Council President Jason King, Safety-Service Director Tom Hitchcock and Council Members.

This is an open letter to all of you to ask for answers to questions that concern many Celina residents.about the new proposed Celina Fire Department Firehouse.

  • Appraisals: Was there an independent appraisal for 501 Grand Lake Rd and the Baronial lots? What were the values and assumptions?

• Why emergency: What was the concrete time constraint that required bypassing 3 readings and adding it off-agenda?

• Feasibility study: Does the Mull & Weithman report explicitly recommend this site? If not, what analysis does?

• Funding plan: Bond? income tax fire-capital funds? grants? What’s the estimated all-in project cost and debt service?

• Demolition grant details: Who applied/sponsored Orchard Tree demo funding? What commitments (if any) did Mercer Health make tied to receiving demolition assistance?

• ISO/response-time map: What runs fall outside the 4-minute threshold from the new site vs the current site?

  • Purchase agreements between the City and Mercer Health to buy the land happened two days after passage by council, when did the negotiations to buy that land start…who approached who?
  • What will be the cost to the city to build the new building
  • Will the citizens of Celina incur additional taxes
  • Projected timeline to break ground and completion of firehouse?
  • What will happen to the Main Street Courthouse?

Please forward other details that you have on this building project.

We hope you will reply to this request as soon as possible. We know that you are all currently deeply involved in bee hive regulations…but we hope that you can work this in to your schedule.

Thank you

Dave Schmidt

Mercer County Outlook