OCR Text |
Show Cities Insist That Utah j County Meet Costs jOn County Fire Fighting i I I A year ago, representatives I from the various cities in Utah County met with the County i Commissioners in an effort to work out equitable financial arrangements ar-rangements for the furnishing of fire protection to the unincorporated unincorp-orated area of the county. Since that time, three additional meetings meet-ings have been called in an effort ef-fort to obtain definite action. At present, the county pays $12,000.00 per year for fire protection pro-tection which is divided among the nine cities furnishing such protection. When the county was in debt, this arrangement was not seriously seri-ously contested by the cities. The situation has been altered considerably con-siderably during the past few years, however. The county is entirely 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 added burden bur-den of supplying additional public pub-lic service, went to the cities. It is small wonder that the county is able to reduce taxes, while the I 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 Weber counties pays from six to twelve times more for protecting the unincorporated area of their county than does Utah County; either by furnishing separate fire fighting facilities or by participating partici-pating with the cities to that extent. Many people owning property in our cities are not aware that the taxes assessed against them by the county are used exclusively exclusive-ly in the unincorporated areas, and do not revert to the advantage advan-tage of the cities. While it may appear that the cities have recently issued what amounts' to an ultimatum to the County Commissioners in requesting re-questing an increased allotment for protecting property in the unincorporated area, it was done only after a careful study of the facts which revealed that, under the present s arrangement, the county pays only a fraction of the actual cost of protecting property in the unincorporated area, and has failed to equalize the burden to date. It is therefore felt that the proposal as submitted to the County Commission to increase participation to $30,000.00 for the ensuing year of 1948, and a sum equal to V2 mill assessed valuation valua-tion 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 would readily understand why the cities cannot afford to continue con-tinue to offer protection under the presentconditions. After all, most of the people of the county live in the cities, so they have to pay their protection anyway, but much of the total wealth of the county is in unincorporated unin-corporated areas. Surely if we are to receiye 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. |