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Show Coiiiil)'-(5lj' Fire Problem liral lly Provo Chief City Fire Departments Will No Longer Be Responsible For Fires Outside City Limits Unless County Pays Reasonable Expense I" a communication received today from Lloyd D I Dickson, duet or the 1 rovo Fire department, lie tells just why the city fire departments are taking their present stand i; in regard to fires outside the var- . ! ""u ' ious city limits. His explanation :, is as follows: "A year ago, representatives from the various cities in . Utah ': county met with the county commissioners com-missioners in an effort to work out equitable financial arrangements arrange-ments for the furnishing of fire protection to the unincorporated . area of the county. Since that time, three additional meetings have been called in an effort to n obtain definite action. ' "At present, the county pays S $12,000.00 per year for fire protection protec-tion which is divided among the nine cities furnishing such protection. protec-tion. "When the county was in debt, 1 this arrangement was not serious-j serious-j ly contested by the cities. The situation sit-uation has been altered consider- ably during the past few years, j however. The county is entirely , i free of debt, in fact, has a surplus, according to the auditor's report. During the war years, most of the increase in assessed values was located in the county, while the increase in population, with the i added burden of . supplying additional addi-tional public services, went to the cities. It is a small wonder that the county is able to reduce taxes, while the cities are desperately searching for more revenue. "It may be interesting to note that on the basis of assessed valuation, val-uation, Salt Lake, Cache, and i Weber counties pay from six .to twelve times more protecting the unincorporated area of their coun-: coun-: ty than does Utah county; either i by furnishing separate, fire fighting fight-ing facilities or by participating with the cities to that extent. . , "Many people owning property I in our cities are not aware that ;: the taxes assessed against them M by the county are used exclusively in the unincorporated areas, and m do not revert to the advantage of i. the cities. j "While it may appear that the ! cities have recently issued what (amounts to an ultimatum to the county commissioners in requesting request-ing an increased allotment for pro-I pro-I tecting property in the unincor-(Continued unincor-(Continued on Page 2) County-City Fire Problem Aired By Provo Chief (Continued from Page 1) porated area, it was done only after a careful study of the facts which revealed that, under the present arrangement, the county pays only a fraction of the actual cost of protecting property in the unincorporated area, and has failed fail-ed to equalize the burden to date. "It is therefore felt that the proposal as submitted to the county coun-ty commission to increase participation partici-pation to $30,000.00 for the ensuing en-suing year of 1948, and a sum equal to -mill assessed valuation for the following years is entirely in line, in justice and equity. "If the financial conditions of the county were as precarious as those of, the cities; the county could readilv understand why the cities can not afford to continue to offer protection under the present pres-ent conditions. "After all, most of the people of the county live in the cities, so they have to pay for their protection protec-tion anyway, but much of the total wealth of the county is in unincorporated areas. Surely if we are to receive the same protection, protec-tion, we should expect to pay equally according to the assessments assess-ments levied against us, and not penalize the poor city dweller in favor of the county area." |