Public about to learn how the BTVFD spends your tax dollars!

I have written a letter to Dan Myres at the Hamburg Sun News and I have also used a variation of this letter to pass out in a literature drop this weekend throughout the fire district for the Big Tree Fire Department. It’s about time the public becomes aware of the misuses of our tax dollars by this department and the huge problems that come with no financial oversight. I hope you like the letter. 

Dan,

 

Over the last few years I have written in to your “Letter to the Editor” column to get information out to the public about how politics really work in our town. Now I would like to try and get a conversation started about how and what our fire taxes are being spent on.

 

I for one applaud our fire volunteers and appreciate their efforts in the job they do. I don’t have a single beef with any of the young men and women that volunteer to fight fires in this town. What I do have a beef with is the administration within these departments on how they spend our tax dollars.

 

Specifically the Big Tree Volunteer Fire Department has broken the trust with the public it has been contracted to protect. For years the BTVFD has asked for increases in its tax revenue with little or no cause. Now it actually appears they have hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in their accounts but they keep asking for more tax increases. For those who don’t follow these issues I am sorry to inform you that the BTVFD has recently taken more than $350 thousand dollars and purchased property to build a new fire hall without Hamburg Town Counsel approval.

 

They have also purchased equipment to clear this property and the word on the street is they are intending to build a 4 million dollar facility very soon. I have tried to get explanations from the leadership of the BTVFD for its expenditures but no-one has ever answered my inquiries. I have asked simple questions like how many actual fires they have fought in the last three years and how much money do they have in the bank, but I’m always met with silence.

 

I think it’s important for the public to know that the BTVFD isn’t listed as a “not for profit” organization like so many volunteer fire departments and the town has no legal authority to look at their financial book keeping. It’s also not widely known that every town fire department is considered a privately owned organization and they are contracted to provide fire services to a specific district every year.  Even though we the tax payers pay for all the equipment in each fire department, the town doesn’t own any of it. These fire departments are allowed to keep this equipment without any stipulation as to who owns what if their yearly contracts are not retained.

 

I’m also told by friends in several town fire departments that the BTVFD turns away more than half of their paramedic/ambulance calls to Rural Metro Ambulance Service but yet they continue to expect the town to pay for that training and equipment upkeep. In fact the town contracts with Rural Metro Ambulance Service to provide this service throughout the town because all the fire departments are “unreliable” to answer such calls when they come in. So in essence we are being double taxed for that service. When will this kind of financial bleeding end in Hamburg?

 

I for one would like the Town to insist on a few contract changes with the BTVFD and all the other fire departments in Hamburg. I would ask the town include stipulations allowing full access to the book keeping of the fire departments and I would like the town to stipulate that all fire equipment purchased with tax dollars be reverted to town ownership should consolidation of any fire districts happen in the future. I think the paramedic/ambulance service should be terminated in each fire departmentand it be reflective in the taxes we pay. I also think the town should have final say in the building of any facilities by these fire departments since it requires our tax dollars to build them.

 

Finally I think that the town should post online and make public all statisitcs for these departments and list the total amount of calls, fires fought and any other relevant information to the public each year justifying the money we spend on fire services. Remember we are supposed to have representation before taxation and when it comes to these fire districts we have no representation or oversight at this time. I hope the readers of your newspaper agree and get behind any effort to reform these fire departments.