Amador County – The Amador County Board of Supervisors today will discuss the state fire fighting fee of $150 on rural homes, and consider approving a comment letter by Chairman John Plasse.
Assembly Bill X129 would impose a $150 annual fire fee for homes in “State Responsibility Areas” protected by California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Supervisors will consider an Aug. 2 letter from Tuolumne County Supervisor Chairman John L. Gray to the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, and legislators. Gray asked them to “consider whatever means are available to seek repeal” of the fee “or, at the very least, consider ways to address” its inequities. Gray said passage of AB X129 did not meet “a two-thirds supermajority,” and the fee was “subject to legal challenge.”
Gray criticized that AB X129’s requirement to pass “an emergency scheme to impose the fees” by Sept. 1, saying it did not give “sufficient time to implement the fee in a thoughtful and responsible manner.” He also said the Fire Fee “will not improve fire service and may complicate the mutual aid system.”
The Fire Fee would impact “almost all residents of Tuolumne County” and “has the effect of double taxation.” Tuolumne residents already have fire districts and have imposed fire service taxes on themselves. Gray said if the state Fire Fee was in place, it would make it highly unlikely to pass future fire services measures: “The end result is less fire protection services than residents currently enjoy.”
Former Amador County Fire Warden, and retired Amador-El Dorado CDF Unit Chief Jim Simmons in a July 29 letter to the Auburn Journal, said the “state fire fee is poorly conceived” and “legislation creating this fee should be repealed.”
Simmons said the “theory behind this fee is that rural residents receive free fire protection” and it was similar to legislation he analyzed as State Fire Protection Planning Officer during Gov. Brown’s first term in the 1970s. Simmons said: “My research indicated that urban residents and agricultural areas actually receive the greatest benefit” of CDF’s protection system.
He said CDF gets help from hundreds of emergency vehicles in mutual aid, largely for free, avoiding maintenance costs.
In his opinion, Simmons said $150 “fire fee will have a chilling effect on future local elections… Voters simply will not vote for additional fees or taxes on top of the fee charged by the state.”
Simmons was asked by Supervisors “to develop and sell a ballot measure to create a fire district for the rural areas of Amador County served by volunteer fire companies.” He said it “took 12 years and three separate elections to create the district.”
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
