Democracy in action: Henrietta fire station vote
A couple days ago stlo7 brought up that Henrietta Fire District would be having a vote on a proposal to build a new fire station. So, how did that turn out? Regardless of what side you’re on, it’s nice to see more people getting interested in the process:Â From the D&C
Henrietta says ‘no’ to firehouse project
Second balloting since April draws more than 1,100 to the polls
Voters turned out in droves Tuesday and defeated a plan to build a $2.7 million fire station at 230 Pinnacle Road.
The proposal fell by a vote of 622 to 518.
I don’t know enough about this to say whether I’m for or against the proposal, but it’s nice to see folks taking an interest. My gut feel is that although Henrietta fire taxes are low, according to the comments on the D&C story:
Henrietta has one of the lowest fire tax rates in the County. The fire taxes have increased quite a bit over the years primarily due to a lack of volunteer firefighters. Close to 75% of our budget is personnel costs. In 2005 we had a 0% increase in taxes, in 2006 we had an increase of approximately 2.6% and in 2007 we had a DECREASE of about 3.1%. At the same time we hired 10 more FF and purchased 3 firetrucks. I think that is doing pretty good.
Hmmm.
So folks don’t want to pay taxes for services, but they don’t want to volunteer either. Americans in general tend to want something for nothing these days, and the anti-tax conservatives tap into this.
But the proposal may have been over the top, just the same, and a renovation would be more appropriate than a full rebuild.
Thanks for following this up.
I spoke with a couple of voters last night and they were confused as to which way to vote. I don’t know how they voted. That plus quotes in the the article leads me to beleive that this is a fire district credibility issue.
This isn’t about right or wrong it is about trust us we know better. The argument keeps coming back that the numbers don’t make sense (per the quotes I saw).
So until the elected folks of the Henrietta Fire District can make this clear to the voter they don’t deserve a new fire house.
The new firehouse it WAY over the top.
What I mean to say is, the money they want to spend to build this facility is crazy. They could spend 40K and build a ranch house next to the fire station so the 2 firefighters who stay over could stay there.
The way the facility is set-renovation wouldn’t work. I’ve been through the structure-it’s really very small. This is too bad….
At the same time the fire vote was going on, democracy in action occurred also at the Henrietta Democratic Committee where Eric Massa was endorsed for the 29th CD unanimously and resoundingly..but then again…those endorsements are “just silly,” right? (hint the sarcasm).
[...] We spoke about it first here where 10 votes made a difference out of 158 total. This time 1140 people showed up and 104 votes made the [...]
[...] whether it is a Fire District election or a Presidential race - your vote does [...]