America Gone Wrong
In a case of "America Gone Wrong" the firefighters of Monett, Missouri stood by and watched as a garage burned to the ground.
Why didn't logic prevail, with the firefighters taking the money on-the-spot, even though they didn't have a policy? I absolutely disagree with practices like this that charge you extra outside of your taxes for fire safety. Imagine a world where fire departments were privatized and only those with the money could afford fire protection. Practices like this I fear could lead to the denial of what many take for-granted as a basic government service.
Thanks to Craig for pointing this out to me. Google News is starting to gather a whole group of stories together on this.
Tags: Monett
From the Associated Press
Missouri Firefighters Refuse to Help Non-Member
MONETT, Mo. - Rural firefighters stood by and watched a fire destroy a garage and a vehicle because the property owner had not paid membership dues.
Bibaldo Rueda - who was injured battling the flames Monday - offered to pay the dues as the fire blazed away, but the Monett Rural Fire Department does not have a policy for on-the-spot billing, Sheriff's Detective Robert Evenson said.
Fire Chief Ronnie Myers defended the no-pay, no-aid policy, saying the membership-based organization could not survive if people thought the department would respond for free. The department said it will fight a fire without question if a life is believed to be in danger.
Rueda used a garden hose and buckets to fight the flames while firefighters stood by on the road, watching in case the blaze spread to neighboring properties owned by members. The fire eventually burned itself out.
Rueda said no one told him about the dues policy when he moved in 1 1/2 years ago.
Why didn't logic prevail, with the firefighters taking the money on-the-spot, even though they didn't have a policy? I absolutely disagree with practices like this that charge you extra outside of your taxes for fire safety. Imagine a world where fire departments were privatized and only those with the money could afford fire protection. Practices like this I fear could lead to the denial of what many take for-granted as a basic government service.
Thanks to Craig for pointing this out to me. Google News is starting to gather a whole group of stories together on this.
Tags: Monett
11 Comments:
At February 17, 2006 1:14 PM , Matt Luce said...
Was this privatized though? "Monett Rural Fire Department" sounds like a government agency, not a private company to me.
At February 17, 2006 1:18 PM , Jeramey said...
I'm quite sure it wasn't privatized. I think it is a stepping stone to that occuring though. It appears to be run more like a private company than a ordinary fire department.
If there needs to be financial support for the fire department it needs to come through property taxes, not another outside fee.
At February 17, 2006 2:27 PM , Chris Meadows said...
Not every rural community has the necessary tax base to support a fire department. Rural volunteer fire departments have been funded with dues for quite some time; I came across an article about a Colorado VFD celebrating its 100th anniversary that had started out charging its members $1 in dues. Many still are thusly funded.
Note that, as the full-length News-Leader article says, state law does allow for fire departments choosing to fight fires for non-members and then charging them for it afterward. That could have been done in this case, except that the fire department didn't have a "policy" for that.
The article also indicates that Monett's voters had a chance to change from a dues basis to a tax basis in 2001, but chose not to. I wonder what those voters will think about it now.
At February 17, 2006 2:46 PM , Jagger said...
Great...now I can burn the world and if no one pays dues no one can stop me!
At February 17, 2006 2:50 PM , Jeramey said...
In response to Chris Meadows, why not just build that in to the taxes? The money is clearly coming from the pockets of the citizens one way or another. Wouldn't it be easier to just have it part of your tax? That would have avoided a situation like this one.
I appreciate your information on the issue. Ironic almost that they did know about the provision that would have allowed them to still follow their policies and bill later.
At February 17, 2006 3:17 PM , Chris Meadows said...
Because some people are going to be cheapskates and don't believe that their house could ever catch fire, and they don't want to have to subsidize the people who are fire hazards. As long as it's dues-based, they can simply choose not to pay it.
This is also why tax issues to fund schools have such a hard time passing; everyone who doesn't have a kid votes against them.
Also, I expect there are some VFDs that support more than one municipality because no one municipality in the area could afford the funding by itself. It would be interesting to see more research on this matter.
Whatever the reasons Monett's own citizens voted it down were, they must have had what they felt were good ones. I wonder what they were.
At February 17, 2006 3:25 PM , Jeramey said...
I think common sense needs to prevail and the idea that fire protection is an essential function of government needs to register with the people. They need to pay for it as a whole community.
At February 17, 2006 3:53 PM , Chris Meadows said...
Back when organized firefighting began, it actually wasn't so much a function of government. Frefighting was done by whoever had the wherewithal to do it, and people who lived in an area that didn't have a big enough government to provide it banded together to provide it themselves. Wikipedia has some interesting history on firefighters—particularly this bit:
Benjamin Franklin created the Union Fire Company in 1736 in Philadelphia, the first volunteer fire company in America. There were no full-time paid firefighters in America until 1850. Even after the formation of paid fire companies in the United States, there were disagreements and often fights over territory. New York City companies were famous for sending runners out to fires with a large barrel to cover the hydrant closest to the fire in advance of the engines. Often fights would break out between the runners and even the responding fire companies for the right to fight the fire and receive the insurance money that would be paid to the company that fought it.
Taking a wild-assed guess, I'd say the current volunteer/dues-based structures are a vestige of those bygone days, and because the population density is lower out in the country, it hasn't been worth anyone's while to do anything about it. Or I could be dead wrong. Anyway, I'm not trying to justify it so much as I am explain it. Or something.
At February 17, 2006 5:58 PM , Matt Luce said...
I would disagree. I don't think firefighting is a necessary function of government in a lightly populated area. Also, I don't think someone is a cheapskate if they want to choose how they spend their own money rather than have the government take it from them forcibly.
At February 18, 2006 10:51 AM , Duane Keys said...
This is a sad example of SWMO... Most local rural fire departments have a billing policy for non members. This reeks of something, and it's not neighborly love.
At February 19, 2006 7:41 AM , HRH Julie, IQWM said...
I've been covering this issue a bit at my blog as well, and something that's getting missed in the press is this is not a money issue. There are ways the fire department could have made their money, and Mr. Rueda did offer to pay for the service he was unaware he had to buy. Nope, this isn't about cash. It's a racial issue.
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