||| FROM STEVE SCHAEFER |||
We currently enjoy outstanding EMS and fire services, much of it provided by volunteers, who deserve the continued support provided by good equipment and staffing. I’d hate to see our Fire Department follow the same path of misery as our ferry system due to lack of funding.
There are likely many causes of the current financial challenges. However, it’s evident to me that our current Board of Fire Commissioners has worked hard to improve and put a plan and budget in place for future success. Our current Board consists of “elected” and “non-elected” members. My hat’s off to those who stepped up when other board members left. It certainly doesn’t make them less qualified to do the job.
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Thanks Steve, your comments are spot on! I have been a member of more than one fire and rescue department, and consider OIFR to be one of the very best. The levy is vital to support the needs of the department. The opponents ignore the increased fire risks from climate change, the increased island population, the 48% call volume increase in the past 10 years, and the rising costs of nearly everything. If we want Orcas Island Fire and Rescue to remain the very best, then we need to support it. Our lives, property, and well-being may depend on it!
Good thing 3/4 of the population of the island disagree with you. We need ELECTED commissioners. There are other ways to fund our already funded fire department. All of our homes had the assessments jacked up this year, How about yours Dan? Let’s chill out on the levy. Vote NO.
How can you possibly compare the ferry system to our fire department? They are in no way similar.
The levy is flawed in many ways and should be failed again.
I think you have missed the central problems with this levy. It is too large, it is a permenant lift regardless of the commission’s misinformation campaign and it removes any voter approvals for ever because of all the excess cash the department would receive each year. And don’t forget the importance of community input which did not occur in the crafting of this dog levy by a consultant.
Why would the department need to ask for future voter approval when they stand to receive millions more than they need to operate each year?
Look at the numbers they publish. At 3 million a year to operate they would net 1.4m a year. More when assessments rise. Do they intend to be fire department or an investment bank?
Simply failing this same levy we already failed before provides our reconstituted board a clean sheet opportunity to send us a levy we can all support. Isn’t that a reasonable goal.
I have watched this discussion play out with dismay. Two conclusions are inescapable: 1) there is widespread distrust of the current OIFR BoC, at least amongst the chattering classes; and 2) OIFR most likely needs every penny of the proposed levy lift. Regarding 2), a very crude estimate of the cost increase of providing their service (or any other) to the island is the product of the population increase over the last 10 years (about 13%) and the CPI increase for the same period (30%). That gives 47%, which is already more than half of the requested effective tax rate increase, and is surely a gross underestimate since virtually nothing here is subject to less inflation than elsewhere (especially housing for the staff!). Because of the imbecile Initiative 747, OIFR should bank a sizable reserve to get through years of declining revenue while meeting long-neglected equipment needs., This roughly accounts for the remainder per their published budget projections. Regarding 1) – yeah, the current board has done a dismal job of explaining all this. So replace them. But don’t starve this institution. To use distrust of the current board as an excuse not to meet the obvious and pressing financial needs of OIFR is plainly just an excuse to cheap out on your obligation to support a vital service that we all depend on. Don’t do it. Vote YES on the levy lift, and vote in whomever you like for the new board.
First it was “trailer trash” and now its “chattering class”? Really?
It is surely true that the department is going to need a ton of financial support over the next 10 years or so in order to correct the sins of past. Read that terrible funding management for many years in order to deal with inflationary pressures and increases in services
We all agree that we will fund our department fully, however, simply burying them in cash and hoping for a better outcome is pollyanna to the extreme. Your chattering class and cheap out wisecracks are just the kind of comments that contribute to problem.
A civics lesson approaches.
Oh William… you are factoring in local “housing costs”? <~~~ a clear indication that you really haven’t paid much attention as the “chattering class” has done.
OIFR laid off the only two (and most senior members of the union) local paid responders.
The rest of them live off island so they are not available to respond to an emergency unless they are on the clock. That model will not work here. They also do not own property on Orcas so they will not be paying the tab. I guess that is how they can afford all those fancy red signs. The “chattering class/trailer trash/A-holes” that HAVE been paying attention all understand the needs of OIFR and want the department funded. It will happen when the new board is seated and they work with the folks that pay the bill to git er dun!
I remain uncertain, so will vote no at this time.
The 2023 San Juan County property assessments are in the mail (finally!) . The Orcas Island new total assessed valuation is going to be above 17% after last year’s 30% increase at about $4.75 billion.
What that means for the fire levy at $1.06 per $1K valuation is the level will MORE THAN DOUBLE the tax revenue for the fire department. And this is a permanent levy.
This will result in millions of more dollars in revenue than what they need in there next 10 years, even given the five new fire engines they are proposing to purchase in the next six years.
Vote in new commissioners and vote for a new levy next year that will be sufficient to not just maintain, but improve the fire district’s current levy of service without giving them more tax revenue than they will even know what to do with.
Since when has blindly throwing money at a governmental agency been good policy? Vote NO on this levy and elect a board of commissioners to make sane and sensible decisions about what is actually needed for a rural island that is 10 minutes by air from the hospital. Big city standards for equipment and paid staffing don’t necessarily fit our real needs here. Inflation is cutting into my personal budget and a little belt-tightening is in order. Why should I fund a huge increase for the fire department before they try a little belt-tightening of their own?