Dont pay for fire service, watch your house burn

I'm not Elwood but....It's true.

It's kind of a testament to the integrity of the owners we've had here that it was never taken advantage of regardless of personal finances.

First, that salary was for firefighters, not EMTs and second, I didn't estimate that, I got it from www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes332011.htm.

The average salary is almost useless as a guide. Big city firefighters make vastly more than the pint sized town dept's that make up most of the dept's.

Everything in that post was a very rough estimate and only to attempt to see if $75 per person was enough to start up a fire department - which is a mute point now as that wasn't even the case.

Re: Dont pay for fire service, watch your hosue burn

Ghosts won't do it for you?

Go back and read the article.

Survey says:

That's shitty. I did almost 20 years of volunteer EMS and Fire Dept., Search and Rescue, even was a trained cave rescuer, and never thought once about getting paid for it. I was a firefighter and a medic, not a tax collector.

Paying $75 to have fire coverage and paying $75 when you need the fire department to come are not the same thing. You don't pay the $75 for the fire department to put out a fire. You pay the $75 to defray the costs of the fire department extending service to people outside the city limits...from whom NO TAXES are collected to pay for fire service.

He "forgot?" Well, what happens when you "forget" to pay your car insurance and you get in an accident? What happens when you "forget" to pay your telephone bill?

Fighting fires is an expensive operation involving lots of manpower and equipment. The city defrays that cost by charging potential users $75, which probably brings in a considerable sum of money and makes the service viable. If the fire department could only collect $75 each time they were summoned to a fire from people who "forgot" , the service wouldn't be viable.

Re: Dont pay for fire service, watch your hosue burn

Albert, you stupid fuck, I've already said you backwards shithole state dwellers should do it our way and just make it part of everyone's property tax bill. It's by far the easiest and most convenient way to go about this.

Re: Dont pay for fire service, watch your hosue burn

Guess what? Even in the hickville parts of CA the county government has a legal obligation to provide essential basic services such as police and fire services. These essential government services are paid for out of property taxes, which is, as it should be.

As for claiming fires aren't the same threats in the sticks, I call B.S.. First of all it damages public lands as well as private property and second of all raging out of control wild fires are a huge problem in many states and, unfortunately, they often end up burning their way into neighboring communities. Small fires can and do easily turn into raging infernos (hell, that shit happens every summer out here) threatening all sorts of public and private property so they're best put out when they're small before they grow and require 10,000 fire fighters and tens of millions of dollars worth of equipment to fight. This is just common sense.

He supposedly had paid for most of the last 10 years but was on vacation when the bill came this year. Either way even if you want to keep your backwards shithole-istan way of making people pay for essential basic government services (which should be covered by property taxes) then you can simply charge people a $2000 fee for missing the $75 and you'll get the deterrent effect you whine so much about.

It's still far more efficient and easy to simply make it part of everyone's property tax bill though.

There's plenty of evidence that has been shown from various articles in this thread that he hadn't paid the money for some time, the fire department had helped him several times at no charge, and that he figured they would do it again. He was wrong.

I have the deepest sympathy for the animals that died. It breaks my heart that they had to suffer and die because their stupid owner figured he could game the system. Yeah, the system's imperfect, but without funding, the fire department would either be far too underfunded to even help, or even to exist at all. This guy knew all of that going in and he still did it anyway. He was wrong. While I feel sad that they lost the property, at the root of it all, it was still his fault.

I don't like how the system there is setup, I don't like that they didn't put out the fire. It still doesn't negate the history of this man's actions with the fire department, actions that indicate he was fully taking advantage of the system and expected to get away with it time and again. Unfortunately, lives were lost, and that makes me angry, but those lives rest squarely on the owner of the house.

Is it just me, or does the phrase "essential basic government services" give some of the rest of you a rash too? I mean yeah, I get it. You need things like radar-invisible bombers and border police and such, but still...the phrase bothers me. Like "common sense gun safety laws."

I'm saying, even with keeping the backwards, illogical, and completely fucked up system currently in place in that county then a surcharge, or "late fee" if you will, costing several thousand dollars would effectively prevent anyone from attempting to game the system. There are better alternatives then simply letting someone's house burn down.

Honestly, I'm still utterly astounded at the stupidity and backwardness of Tennessee. I'm not sure why as I've come to accept that the south in general is a complete waste of space but how on Earth can even the most retarded inbred southern P.O.S. not understand that fire services are a basic government service which needs to be paid for out of property taxes? Talk about missing the forest for the trees. Fires spread and easily get out of control in a very short period of time so there is an obvious public safety issue here.

Another version of the article--with video: http://www.katu.com/news/weird/104375464.html

So they charge the man a late fee. He didn't pay $75, why would he pay the late fee? Let's say, for shits and giggles, they charge him a $1000 late fee. Do you think he'll pay the late fee? He already failed to pay them the $500 each time they had to come out and put out fires on his property on top of the $75 yearly fee he neglected to pay. They would have to sue him for the money. So they sue him, and what do they get? Whether he can't pay or he won't pay, they'll have spent thousands of dollars in litigation for nothing. Fines and fees only work when someone has money to pay them.

I'll leave you to your rant, but consider what I said earlier.

Prove it.

That contradicts other known facts. The fire department says he hadn't paid in awhile.

Some rural areas have volunteer Fire and EMS that's funded by donations, not government agencies.

Because being a legally enforceable government fee the property would be subject to foreclosure if he did not? This isn't that hard.

I'm ok with that as long as the county government provides at least some measure of fire protection as it is an essential public service. That said even a volunteer fire service still requires a great deal of money to pay for equipment thus it is still superior to have the system paid for via property tax revenue.

Did anyone else think of this song?

"Look at the sky turnin' Hell-fire red Lord,
somebody's house is burnin'......"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SADGrg30YGU

You're actually saying "if he can't pay them to save his house, they should save his house so they can take his house from him!" In that case, letting it burn to the ground would be far more cost effective all the way around! This isn't that hard.

Nope. Thought of this one.

[YT="Like it didn't cross your mind."]FYuFIrSLD84&[/YT]

Watch the video in this link which has the home owner saying he'd paid for several years in a row.

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/artic...r-finding-owner-didnt-pay-annual-fee/19662595

HA! Tom Jones still rocks like a mother! Coolest old dude on the planet, bar none. He's great at adapting to the modern music scene and still being.....Tom Jones. His voice sounds as good as it ever did IMO.

I thought of this one.

I would assume he has receipts?

I'll break it down for you since you seem slow (or rather deliberately acting obtuse). You can charge him a fee for showing up which would be equal to the cost of the fire crew showing up and putting out the fire. You, rather stupidly and erroneously, claimed people would not pay the fee to which I responded that if they did not then their property would be subject to foreclosure (or at least a lien) just as if they had not paid any other public debt. My guess is most home owners would actually pay the fees despite your unsupported claims to the contrary. Property owners generally will pay fees if it threatens their property title so really your whole "he won't pay" argument is cow manure.

This still doesn't change the fact that simply tacking on an extra $25 to everyone's property tax bill would likely be enough to give everyone in the entire county fire service coverage and thus that would be the logical way to go.

I've really never heard of anything like this before. Even here in the dregs of NJ, the fire truck will come to your house even if you live in the middle of nowhere and put the fire out, before it can spread to your neighbors. Although, the firetruck might get stuck for an hour in Jersey traffic, it does eventually show up. This must vary from state to state.

Beck, that's because we both live in civilized states while the people in the OP live in darkest Dumbfuckastan.

Ahh, Jamey... Come and give big daddy a kiss.