Thursday, February 28, 2008

Thursday's Thoughts

Ring of Fire

Do all trends start in California? Apparently not and you may not like this one if it catches fire (that's a pun kiddies). If you live in Bellevue, a small suburb of Omaha, Nebraska you may soon have to pay (in more ways than one) if there is a fire in your place of residence.

Will you be ready for al-a-carte fire service? According to the Bellevue City Council, the minimum cost for a small kitchen fire would be around $2,500.00. A larger fire (like your whole house) would be charged according to the number of units responding.

Will there be any cheating here, like the homeowner with his home fully engulfed calling to report a kitchen fire? Or would the city send everything it had just to pad the bill when there was a call about a trash fire? The city believes that insurance will cover any costs but declines to comment on what that may mean to insurance rates.

Get ready folks, this could get ugly and oh, by the way, what on earth are cities doing with our tax dollars?

What if they had an election an nobody came?

Well, this was almost the case in Council Bluffs, Ia. On Tuesday, February 26th, there was a special election and 952 voters decided that every homeowner in the city will continue to pay a levy for the next ten years to support school building and grounds maintenance. 952 voters. That equates to 2.9% of the 35,339 registered voters. Quite a turnout wouldn't you say.

Since it cost about $15,000 to hold the election it equates to about $15.75 per vote (or at the current cost of gasoline, about 5 gallons worth). You would think that a few more people might be able to get to the polling place and still use much less than 5 gallons of gas. Hell, in this town, many of them could have walked, especially since it was a rather pleasant day on Tuesday.

2 comments:

david mcmahon said...

Sheeesh - it'd almost be cheaper to pay your way thru firefighting school, hey?!!

DaddyKaos said...

David: Yes, you are correct but what is really scary is the possibility that this catches on and cities start looking for all different kinds of services, that we pay taxes to support, as a revenue windfall.

Want to report a crime or an accident, need a library card or you need to register you child for school, have your checkbook ready.

CK and the Dr. have already experienced that in Portland and have to pay extra for a full day of public schooling for little K.