... Obion County Expands Subscription-Only Fire Service To More Towns (Think Progress)

[struggle4progress]

After Firefighters Watched Home Burn, Obion County Expands Subscription-Only Fire Service To More Towns

... ABC 7 is reporting that the Obion County Budget Committee met last night and has decided to expand the subscription-only fire service to additional towns. The station reports that the committee “passed an agreement yesterday to give all communities in the county the option of paying a subscription” to purchase fire service — essentially expanding the service that stood by and watched as the Cranick family’s home burned to the ground ... Union City Fire Department Chief Kelly Edmison objects to the new expansion, saying that “the best option is a true fire tax. It eliminates this having 9/11 or whoever check to say, ‘Are they covered or not covered?’ ... According to documents prepared by the county in 2008, a paltry 0.13 cent increase in property taxes on each household would be all it would take to fund fire services for the towns within the county.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/05/after-firefighters-obion-expands/

[RKP5637]

1. Ridiculous... n/t

[movonne]

2. red states in action...no government, no tax increase...crazy red necks...

[gratuitous]

3. No more taxes! thundered the Tea Bagger puppets

And obedient little people lined up to have their wrists slit by their smiling overlords. And we all bemoaned the inevitable blood-letting, because it was just too hard to explain to folks the benefits of shared cost even for services a person might never need. "We don't want to be called 'elitists' or portrayed as a bunch of nanny-staters, telling other people what to do or how to live," said all the good pwogs, who immediately fell into battle with the bad pwogs, who saw the inevitable conclusion coming from a mile away.

And the overlords smiled some more.

[RKP5637]

12. +1000 +++ Very well said and written! n/t

[d_r]

4. this is a really good time for them to expand.

People will be more likely to pay now.

[RKP5637]

5. Yeah, probably all part of the master place, let this one burn, then get more

serfs to sign up and pay.

[seabeyond]

7. serfs? paying a god awful .13 cents for fire service. that is HORRIBLE.

what has this nation become.

[RKP5637]

8. Amazing, isn't it... It gets more creepy each day... n/t

[seabeyond]

6. lets blame the firemen for that atrocious .13 people hurting can't afford. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. We all know that a flat tax (this is what this fee is)

is better than a fire district tax. If I lived in that county I'd be looking for a WAY OUT.

And moving there? You could not pay me enough to move to that dystopia.

[struggle4progress]

10. link to ABC 7 story:

Fire Protection Option
By: Dave Kirk
[e-mail]
4:59 p.m.

... Union City Fire Chief Kelly Edmison agrees the fee will help, but does not think it is the answer.

"I think it will be really effective. It's not the best solution. Without a doubt the best option is a true fire tax. It eliminates this having 911 or whoever to check to say are they covered or not covered? The last thing a firefighter wants to do is to not be able to help when they like to," said Edmison.

Officials hope offering everyone the subscription fee will give the county commission confidence that a fire tax would work.

"The county commission will not vote for county-wide now. They just won't. They want to see how this goes first. If you get 80 percent of the people subscribing, we will impose a fire tax on them and make it a county wide thing," said Edmison ...

http://www.wbbjtv.com/NewsStories/101004FireProtectionOption.html

[PoliticAverse]

11. It's .13 cent per assessed dollar value, or 0.13%. ($130 for a $100,000 property)

So for a property assessed at $100,000.00 the tax would be $130.

You can see how they get the figures. The budget will be about $550,000/year and have about 4,734 households so they need about $550,000/4,734 = approx $116/household.

[gratuitous]

13. And the nice thing about property taxes? They're deductible

Itemize on Schedule A, and reduce your taxable income by that same amount.

Edited to add: And the other nice thing about folding it into the property tax bill is that the locality doesn't have to set up and maintain a separate system to keep track of who has paid and who hasn't paid their fire-only assessment. Every property is assessed, so nobody has to go checking through the records when the call comes in. Just send out the trucks and the fire crew.

[struggle4progress]

15. A no-brainer everywhere except in GOP land

[JVS]

14. You just can't buy this kind of advertisement.