The rest of the story

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/ ... ters-watch-191241763.html

Opinion

People have choice. Participate or not. When you don't there could be a price to pay. They took a $75 gamble and lost. There is no free lunch. (Unless you qualify).

Why don't they just raise property taxes by $75? This seems like a pretty odd setup.

Unrelated, I was reading in one of the auto rags that in Massachusetts, it costs you $275 to contest a ticket, and you don't get your $275 back if you win. Now there is a scam.

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Normally, I'd feel the same way.
But fire/police/ambulance is a bit different.

So, if the same people call an ambulance will the crew stand there and watch them bleed to death?

Put the fire out, send them a bill.

I did love the first comment though.
"If I stop paying federal taxes, will congress please quit?"

I guess I think they made the conscious decision not to pay the available fire protection fee.

The fire department drove all the way out there to make sure everyone was safe. I think that is the extent of what they 'had' to do.

Let's not forget, mobile homes can burn to the ground in a matter of minutes, and being in a rural area we're talking probably upwards of 30 minutes for the emergency team to arrive.

I would like to know what condition the structure was in when they arrived. Sometimes there is no hope...and even city fires are 'watched' and 'controlled' because there is no way to fight the blaze...you have to simply and safely put it out.

I don't think there was a chance in hell hat trailer would have been saved unless it were in the city, minutes from a fire department.

I bet there is a bunch of 75 dollar payments hitting the county treasurer today.........

We have area's here in Missouri like this. The FD is ran by the city, and are volunteer workers. If you don't live in the city and you would like their services you have to pay extra. Its a city vs county tax issue. They knew about the fee too.

I have to pay extra to my insurance company because my house is over 3000' from a fire hydrant.

Who's job is it to check the payment list on the way to the fire?

I have no problem with it it theory, but I'd need more info, because in some ways this can backfire. First off nobody was bleeding to death here. People's personal property was burning. The FD presumably were also ensuring the fire was contained and not spreading to other people's property.

But what if you are the renter in this situation and your landlord doesn't pay the fee?

Clearly the FD is underfunded for those services and if they try to collect a fee, they have to have some teeth or most wouldn't pay. Tax/fee, same thing, I don't know the politics of why they had to make a backdoor tax out of it.

Sucks for the firefighters though to be paid to watch somebody's home burn to the ground. They probably would have been reprimanded if they did anything. But then again they probably have an interest in protecting their dept funding.

The article says this will deter others from not paying, but it's not the first time. If the consequences of not paying were made clear to the homeowner upfront, then I can't feel bad for them.

They have the option to pay on spot. It was a $2200 minimum for 2hrs of service. Then $1100/hr after that. They must keep a credit card machine in their truck!

If you read the comments related that article, there is a guy named "Andy" who stated, "This country has it's priorities way out of focus."

Apparently, 8 people agreed. Zero disagreed. That "Andy" was me.

I didn't want to get into a pissing contest with the fucking idiots that post comments over there. They are ignorant, mean spirited, myopic, idiotic, fools. And fighting with them only proves you are the same.

However, this entire fire dept bill thing is just wrong.

Other states have set up fire districts, even for volunteer units, that cover areas much larger than their city boundaries. In Delaware, all but a few of the fire dept are volunteer. The city of Wilmington is paid, after that, not so much. Dover, DE, is the last state capital with a volunteer dept. Interestingly, they do have a part time staff of some sort, but I am not sure how all that works.

Robins Hose, the volunteer unit for Dover, DE, covers a chunk of central Kent Count, overlapping territory with Little Creek, Hartley and Marydel. To the south is the Camden-Wyoming FD. They cover another chunk that butts up against Felton FD, and to the north is the Smyrna FD, Citizens Hose. What is interesting is that they do get state support to cover these "zones". They may be named for a town, but that isn't their only area of protection.

All depts back up each other, too. I remember one time, summer 1986, there was a fire reported at Kent General Hospital - heavy smoke or something like that. Robins Hose was dispatched, Camden-Wyoming was put on alert, and Hartley responded with their water trucks. Automatically. Now, note that C-W didn't go, they needed to be on alert of something else happened or the fire got real ugly.

However, this spirit of cooperation works and works quite well in Delaware.

What is going on in Tennessee is downright inexcusable. The state MUST step in when public safety is in jeopardy. They need to create fire districts and change the governance of the volunteer squads, so they are serving the district and not the town.

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That's why they have renters insurance.

It all goes back to funding. They could get their fees through an assesment on annual trailer/mobile home registration/property taxes. Our fire protection is paid for annually through our property tax bill. Fire, police, library, public transportation all get a piece of the acrion as well as a community hospital that accepts indigents, schools and the list goes on and on. All paid for by the landowners. Whah-wah. People know about fees and don't take advantage of the serice and protection they offer. I can't count the number of times an elderly couple or person living on social security lost it all because they didn't pay for insurance. People like to gamble. Sometimes you win, lots of times you lose. Protecting property and lives is the key whether your paid or not. If you can save something you should. My guess is it was a total loss from the git go. Like mentioned, containment. Make sure it doesnt spread. What was in that trailer would have survived the water damage? Just sayin .....

Oh ya! What if it was caused by a cigarette, Oh my goodness.

These people live in mobiles because they can't afford to live anywheres else. the risks are understood and they take the risk. No one "owes" them. The local governments can't afford to support everyone all the time. If they did, they'd be bankrupt like we are today.

If you want the mobs protection, you must pay the mob.

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AND your taxes

I am in between on this. Small yearly fee for such valuable service. However -
This line got me too: "Who's job is it to check the payment list on the way to the fire?"
They stop what they are doing and check some list before responding?
I also agree with Bill: "Put the fire out and send a bill"
Then if they don't pay the bill, cite them and take them to court, make them may payments, whatever...

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Where in this article did you read public safety as being in jeopardy? The homeowners were outside and the FD was present. In fact, the homeowners re-entered! I bet you'd be all over it if the FD stepped in to prevent them from reentering their burning home, you know, for public safety.

No need to get into a pissing contest with those "ignorant" fools over there, when you can do it right here.

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And this is where we are losing focus.

The government is covering the asses of people WAY too much and missing the simple, yet important shit.

In my opinion, the government should be responsible for the following services:

Roads
Clean water
Sewage
General Public Health and Well being (not health care, didn't say that)
Fire
Police
Education (even this is debatable)
General regulation that protects the every man
National Defense (State and Federal Level)

After that, it's gravy.

I am not really a fan of government owning utilities, beyond water and sewer. I do prefer water and sewer being publicly run like that... donno why, just feel better about it.

When I say "General regulation" I mean things like reasonable fees for utility bills. Fairness regs so that scammers can't take advantage of the ignorant.

I want education to change. I am tired of this damned teach to a test thing. I want education to teach the basics, and then teach people how to think. We have become a society of thoughtless, entitled punk asses and its time we refocus to what is important.

A little hard work and paying attention to details. We need to be able to compete on a global scale, but at the same time, to do this, we cannot start teaching the rest of the people down to some lowest common denominator. We must get past this group think and create minds with flexibility to solve problems on the fly. I find it fascinating that in politics, if someone has that ability, they are considered wishy-washy. Personally, I find it interesting that they can adjust as the problem or issue matures.

When I was in school, we learned about Pilgrims and Indians and the Revolution for 3 consecutive years. If I sit through another canned lecture on Plymouth Rock, without one reference to a 426 Hemi, I will scream. There was nothing more than rote drilling of some propagandized message.

If people would take the time to be a little nicer and in less of a rush, that would be a good start. I think driving habits are microcosm of the problem. People are rude, they push themselves into lanes where they don't need to be, they don't review a route in advance so they don't know where to start planning to exit or turn... they don't use signals. And when those of us do, they don't let you in. Show some courtesy. It's a joke. And if people would take the time to do those things right, they may do other things right, too.

Don't get me wrong, I do have a fundamental problem with paying a FD crew to drive out to a home and watch it burn. If the amount of resources it takes to put that fire out is less than the resources lost by letting material objects burn, then it is wasteful at the very least. But I also don't believe that entitles someone to someone else's services for free.

But until a means is provided for funding the FD without forcing them to exclude people to create incentive to pay... then it will continue the way it is.

Criticize them ok, but tell me you have a better way, other than expecting these guys to work for free on all these extra calls.

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Someone at the station / dispatch looks up the information for all out of town calls. They have the time to check while the crew is en route.

I wonder if the mobile home occupants had $30 worth of B/C fire extinguishers. If they did, cchhhhhhttttt ccchhhhhht, story's over.

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What part of "volunteer" are you having difficulty with?

Read my post above, you will see it can be made to work.

In my area we have 'volunteer' services also. Somewhere they get a small grant for it, but the firemen are volunteers. There are always fundraisers and such for them and people usually do what they can to help. works quite well here.
but - if you're living in a mobile cause you can't afford anything else, then you do what you have to do. $75 for an entire year IMHO isn't much. $75 a month is different. My father only received $650 per month on disability/social security and he had to pay rent, groceries and you name it, plus his part of his medical care for heart failure and lung cancer out of that. Needless to say, he ended up moving in with us, he couldn't afford to live alone.
But on a related rant regarding the post of "supposed it happened with a cigarette"... well if they quit damned smoking (assumption), that's at least $5 a day that could be put to fire/rental insurance.
My policy is small and it costs me around $30/month. Beats nothing.

Well maybe it wasn't even a cigarette. Maybe a seed pop.

What does them being volunteers or not have anything to do with it?

It costs time and money to send them out there. Resources are limited. Labor is also a limited resource, whether volunteer or not.

Nobody is entitled to a volunteer's labor. They signed up for a task, and now they are expected to cover all these non-payers too?

Now reread my post.

My place would go up nice & toasty.

20 gal flammable solvent tank.
Oxy/acc torch tanks
50 cans of spray paint
15 cans on carb & brake clean
6 gallons of urethane paint
cans of fiberglass resin



bring your own marshmellows.

To keep that from happening they just need to include it in everybodys property tax......75 bucks divided by 12 is 6.25 per month.......nobody is going to bitch about that....or they shouldn't. Hell they're spending that much on pack of smokes.....which is probably what started the fire in the first place......

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Everything is not for everyone Andy.
The costs of entitlement for everyone is just not possible.
This in both a Socialist or Capitalist societies. Both will run out of money. Or cease to exist when those that have, leave.

Eutopia is a moon of Jupiter.