Fire Taxes and Visions

Fire Taxes and Visions

Two agencies of county government have recently called on the public to come out and let them know what the people want.

The Board of Supervisors is considering whether to provide operating funds of the various fire departments and rescue squads. The members want to know whether the public supports taking on this additional responsibility with taxpayer provided funds and if so how they want to be taxed to pay for this.

The Planning Commission, having mostly completed work on the first five chapters of the Comprehensive Plan, wants citizen input before embarking on the chapters that cover goals for the next five years. The first five chapters are made up mostly of statistics on what exists in the county now and trends over the past decades. The real meat and potatoes of the plan is coming up next.

The superv isors will conduct a public hearing on the county budget and various tax rates at 7 p.m. on June 5 in the Courthouse. The Planning Commission wants people to provide their visions for the county!s future at its next meeting, at 7:30 p.m. on June 21, also in the Courthouse.

It is increasingly difficult for the members of the county's fire and rescue squads to get the training required to keep and upgrade their skills, raise funds for ongoing operation and raise funds for expensive equipment to provide the best service possible. With all these demands on their time, the squads are having a hard time attracting new members and even in keeping the ones they have.

•A recent meeting showed that large numbers of people can be mobilized to turn out for a meeting to say what they are against. It will be interesting to see if equal numbers will turn out to say what they are for.

Voting Machines

One item is dramatically absent from the county's proposed budget. State law requires that when a precinct has more than 750 voters it must have voting machines. Hampton District passed 750 voters last year. Jackson and Stonewall-Hawthom districts are not far behind.

.'Wakefield District has two precincts and is therefore not close to the limit. It is illegal to divide One precinct into two just to get out of providing voting machines, but it is legal to do so for the convenience of the voters.

Election judges face a day that begins shortly after 5 a.m. on election day and does not end until all the votes have been tallied and checked. W'ith three or four different ballots in next November’s election, the judges in Hampton District may not finish until well into Wednesday.

Unless the local Board of Elections intends to split Hampton District, with some people voting at the Washington Eire Hall while others vote in the gymnasium of one of the schools, for example, thev need to add the cost of voting machines to their budget. If they do intend to so split the district, they need to add the cost of additional election judges to their budget. Pretending that this situation does not exist is irresponsible.