California Fire Fee Ignites Anger as Bills Go Out

By DON THOMPSON | August 14, 2012

  • August 14, 2012 at 2:57 pm
    Jester says:
    Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 2
    Thumb down 12

    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.

    • August 17, 2012 at 2:31 pm
      Fledge says:
      Like or Dislike:
      Thumb up 5
      Thumb down 0

      can you say ignoramus?

  • August 14, 2012 at 3:03 pm
    Bill LaPolla says:
    Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 25
    Thumb down 0

    SO, here we go again. Moonbeam and his socialist friends are cramming bills down our throats like Obama did. He says it is needed to help pay down the deficit. I find it interesting that being a tax they can impose it without the required legislative vote. Sound familiar??

  • August 14, 2012 at 3:04 pm
    Bob says:
    Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 2
    Thumb down 16

    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.

    • August 17, 2012 at 3:58 am
      John Nygard says:
      Like or Dislike:
      Thumb up 1
      Thumb down 0

      Bob, So if you live in a high crime area and are too poor to move, you should pay more for police protection?
      I don’t need and I don’t want this “protection” I’m going to be paying for. Structure protection is the responsibility of local fire departments while the Feds and State have the job of controlling the wildland part of the fires. I am on the local volunteer fire department, so my frieds and I will be defending the area housing, while sending our “tax” dollars to an agency we won’t see until long after we have 90% of our area fires out.
      One Federal agency complains because we put out fires on their land before they even get here. A few years ago, they wouldn’t respond fast enough and let them get away.

    • August 17, 2012 at 2:30 pm
      Fledge says:
      Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
      Thumb up 13
      Thumb down 0

      So since this is a fee for fire protection, not fire fighting then the 115 or 150 dollar fee pays for all fire prevention required in all 800,000 homes in ‘rural’ areas. Now those ‘people’ living in those homes do not have to cut down all the brush and treas around their properties like they are required to do now. What a great deal for them! Because it already costs them more than 10 times that amount. And if a fire is caused by brush not removed the state is now liable for the damages. Wow!

      • September 29, 2012 at 3:00 am
        Wikiriki says:
        Like or Dislike:
        Thumb up 6
        Thumb down 0

        “Protection” money? Sounds like organized crime to me. Damn outlaws!

        If this is a fee for services, what is the tangible benefit I am supposedly receiving? What? I’m not receiving a tangible benefit? Then that makes it a tax! Sorry Charlie BROWN, no can do! This is a BROWN tax that comes from the BROWN region. Jerry, you can take your brown tax and put it back BACK in your brown region where it belongs!

        “Hey Bullwinkle! Watch me pull a tax outa my @$$!”

  • August 17, 2012 at 2:23 pm
    fledge says:
    Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 11
    Thumb down 0

    What a great idea! Lets find some more minorities to impose special taxes on!

  • August 17, 2012 at 5:17 pm
    Steve says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 11
    Thumb down 2

    This is the OLD Public sector at it again. Finding creative ways to tax people to support their unaccountable behavior at the expense of others. I would say about 45 weeks a year I see firemen washing their personal vehicles, shopping at the supermarket. Get rid of Public Employees and their overpaid salaries & benefits. Worthless Hypocrites.

    • September 28, 2012 at 1:22 pm
      Dana Regean says:
      Like or Dislike:
      Thumb up 1
      Thumb down 2

      This has absolutely nothing to do with your local control firefighters and suppression who protect your city and or county, this is a 100% “state” issue, know as… Cal Fire. Please do your research and read the difference between the two! You are way off here and shame on you for pointing one finger at your local firefighters. My husband has honorably served his city department for 28 years! He runs 17 calls per day in a 24 hour shift, that’s roughly one call per hour, with little to no sleep, or use the freaking bathroom! And, yes firefighter’s are human and eat food. They shop for food at the grocery store (food they pay for out of their own pockets) to make meals at the fire station so they have some sort of nutrictional energy to battle the fire at your home or pull a bloody dismembered body out a car on the freeway. And, if he chooses to wash his car during his 10 minute window of personal time, or call his wife at home to see what his kids did at school that day and if his little Johnnny won the baseball game he wasn’t there to see, is also his choice under standard labor laws. And, you have the nerve to call my husband a worthless hypocrite?? No sir, the minute you pick up the phone to call 911 for your emergency makes you the selfish hypocrite.

  • August 18, 2012 at 3:00 pm
    D Nicholson says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 8
    Thumb down 0

    The vast majority of those living within the rural communities in question already pay fire prevention taxes and routinely clear their properties to create defensible space. The greater problem are the huge number of uninhabited lots which are neglected by their owners. These properties surround ours, and most are large lots covered with dry, combustible materials, which exponentially increase the likelihood of spreading wildfires and the difficulty of fighting them. It is unfair to exempt these property owners from paying prevention taxes if the rest of us must. At the least, they should be required to clear those properties of debris or face fines for not doing so. This would help to generate a huge increase in funds available and a decrease in the need to use them.

  • August 19, 2012 at 4:18 am
    Penny says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 6
    Thumb down 0

    It appears that the people who are for this are renters and won’t have to pay the tax anyway. I already pay for local fire protection. Does this money go to an account for prevention or the general fund that can be used for anything. Gas taxes, levies, assessments and such were suppossed to pay for road maintence and because it goes to the general fund our roads are some of the worst in the country.

  • August 19, 2012 at 6:15 pm
    Dejah Dorantes says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 9
    Thumb down 0

    Excuse me…. I live in an East Bay suburb backing up to East Bay MUD watershed, and, even though our homeowners association pays thousands of dollars to cut brush and weeds around our housing development, we’re still being charged anyway. What’s even more, my husband is a firefighter who has fought many of these wildfires. But they are treating us like rubes or ranchers in the far reaches outside of cities and communities, and I am two blocks from Interstate 80!

  • August 21, 2012 at 8:59 am
    Sue Pease says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 9
    Thumb down 1

    if this is a “fee” and not a tax, why is the State Board of Equaization involved? How come my neighbors all around me are not getting bills? How do i get involved in the lawsuit? If i don’t pay, will there be a levy attached to my property? I find the HJTA website offers very few answers and lots of worthless info. I want to know answers and don’t know where to turn. Sue

    • August 25, 2012 at 2:35 pm
      Keith Hohmann says:
      Like or Dislike:
      Thumb up 0
      Thumb down 0

      A friend told me to go to hjta.org for further info on the fire TAX. He showed me paperwork he said he downloaded how to get involved. I can’t find it.

      • October 3, 2012 at 2:19 pm
        FRANCES says:
        Like or Dislike:
        Thumb up 0
        Thumb down 0

        HOWARD JARVIS TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATION

  • August 21, 2012 at 11:11 am
    Jay says:
    Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 16
    Thumb down 0

    I have received the “bill”. They want checks made payable to the State Board of Equalization and, get this, mailed to “Special TAXES Remittance Processing” at the BOE’s address. Hey, I thought this was a “fee”, not a tax…

    This needs to be challenged immediately.



Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*