Today I received a letter from the township trustee explaining why the sirens were scrapped. Here is what he had to say (I have redacted names for privacy reasons but feel that the letter is an important part of why this happened before people start making rumors/assumptions). This is also being posted to serve as a important notice to people doing this in the future of what may happen that is not in anyone's control and certainly wasn't done without good intent, but more for legal reasons.
I have attached the message below verbatim as I received it. Again; posting this because first, rumors have spread on here and on Discord of why this decision was made and to dispel those rumors I think the whole story should be posted; and secondly to serve as a reminder or just general idea in the future of people doing things like this.
Here goes:
When it comes to public administration, many individuals have ideas that they would like to push to another level. Old sirens that could go to another use.
But just because that individual has those specific ideas, this does not mean that the idea will become a reality. Case in point: a motion was made to not give sirens to anyone due to possible legal ramifications in the future, at this point it was voted on and passed that they be scrapped. When Knox Township received these sirens years ago, this is also what had happened, Beaver Valley had scrapped them, and we got them out of the scrap bin, to refurbish, at that time it made somewhat sense to go in that direction. With cost rising on any type of refurbishing of the Allertor 125, it became apparent that cost would override the project, and that is why Knox Township attempted to get new sirens. Yes it does sadden me that there was not at least one siren saved, but as stated previously, I set on a board of three, so one vote will not make a majority. This is how the system works, I'm not saying I agree with it, but as chairman of the Board of Knox Township Trustees, I support the decision made.
I want to thank everyone for their help on this topic, and as for what happens in the future, we will see, I am in talks with people to have an older 2001-DC siren that is abandoned in Portage County sold to us and installed at a Metropark that needs coverage, and the 2001 is one that we can get state grant money still for...hopefully. So, in other words, there's still hope.
I hope this helps dispel any rumors going around the community about why this decision was made by the BOT as well as the numerous rumors started by an individual with no knowledge of this project on the ARS Discord server (I do not have, nor plan to have, Discord but I was told this by the other friend of mine who was working on this project with me and does have it), so I hope this clears everything up. Thank you for the help everyone, and I hope this topic serves as a lesson/teaching moment to others thinking of doing something similar in the future! I don't want to discourage anyone and I think it might sadden those at ACA who built these fine products along with Jim Biersach, but the fact is this is the way our political system works and sometimes the ideas will be approved and other times they will not; or in our case, as much as the board would have loved to agree to the proposal, they had to stick with their existing agreement and ultimately could not give the sirens to us. But we tried, and that's all you can do!