Here's Where We Are Headed!

[Palehorse]

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/firefighters-let-home-burn-after-finding-owner-didnt-pay-annual-fee/19662595

"(Oct. 6) -- A small rural community in western Tennessee is outraged and the fire chief is nursing a black eye after firefighters stood by and watched a mobile home burn to the ground because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 municipal fee.

South Fulton city firefighters -- equipped with trucks, hoses and other firefighting equipment -- didn't intervene to save Gene Cranick's doublewide trailer home when it caught fire last week. But they did arrive on the scene to protect the house of a neighbor, who had paid his fire subscription fee.

"I just forgot to pay my $75," Cranick told ABC News. "I did it last year, the year before. ... It slipped my mind."

Later that day, Cranick's son Timothy went to the fire station to complain, and punched the fire chief in the face. . ."

So now municipalities are starting to impose "fee's" for services historically paid for via real estate taxation. (Think trash fee, sound familiar?) Clearly this is their way of getting around the real estate tax caps, and another means of taxing the shit out of everyone. . . And now you'll either pay up or have your home burn down around you and lose everything. Next, insurance rates will go up to pay for the wienie roasts the fire departments are holding. . . :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

I find it ludicrous to realize that there are cities within this country that would have their public services personnel stand by and watch a home and all its contents burn over a questionable municipal practice like a "fee", putting peoples lives and livelihoods into dire jeopardy!

Tax payers have been paying their salaries for decades! If I ever were subjected to such treatment, or witnessed my neighbors being subjected to such treatment, I'd sue the pants off everyone involved, including the damned city! There is NO reason in the world to stand by and watch anyone's life burn to the ground. NONE!

If the cities want to charge user fees for services that have been provided and paid for historically through real estate taxation, then they need to eliminate the real estate tax all together and let the users pay! You cannot have it both ways! (And that includes schools!) Either public safety is a concern or it isn't. Clearly public safety is not the concern it was a hundred years ago to the police, fire, and refuse portions of our city systems. They, like everything else, have become for profit entities that are only concerned with the bottom line and nothing else.

I am not saying that all police, fire, and refuse personnel are money grubbing jackasses; although I am sure some are, most of these folks get into their careers out of a sense of service to the public and a strong desire to be the individual who provides a vital service when it is needed most. (And at the same time provide a source of income with which to provide for their own families).

The operations of such "public services" has become a business enterprise with which to generate revenues, instead of a self supporting public service entity that exists out of a need to protect and serve the public safety of a given community.

75 bucks or 126 bucks, is not going to break the average family that have adults working within them, but to me it is more about the "double taxation" that such fees represent! It's underhanded and stealing!  And the imposition of additional "fees" as a condition of the service is unacceptable and outrageous!!!!!!

[flybananas]

i've heard about this and what a catch 22. If they put out that house fire then NO ONE would pay the fee. 75 bucks a year. Why can't they add that to their water bills (oh, rural residents have wells) and spread it out. Maybe a payment plan. Waivers for elderly, disabled or poor. Idk. It was so wrong to my human-ness. Wrong to my heart. But my head understands the business side too. :(