Another Fire Fee Goes to Illegal Fire Fee Heaven

WSS extinguishes rural fire fee proposal

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Posted: Tuesday, July 14, 2015 2:56 pm

By Tina Alvey REGISTER-HERALD REPORTER

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS — The Spa City on Monday became the second Greenbrier County municipality to extinguish a proposal for a rural fire fee before a final vote could be conducted.

A rural fire fee ordinance requiring three separate council approvals got the go-ahead during the first reading in White Sulphur in June. The ordinance provided for the imposition of a fee on owners of property located outside the city limits but within the so-called "first due" area — the rural portion of the White Sulphur Springs Volunteer Fire Department's state-mandated fire district.

Prior to Monday evening's city council session, the WSSVFD requested that the governing body "let it (the ordinance) die," citing technical and legal issues with the measure as initially presented. All council members, plus the mayor and recorder, were present at the finance committee meeting where the request was made.

"As it's written, it doesn't work for us in White Sulphur Springs," Mayor Lloyd Haynes said at that finance meeting.

He later explained to the audience attending the council session that the ordinance "in its current form" would not be approved, suggesting that it could be reworked and presented afresh at a later date.

But when the time came to address the agenda item calling for a second reading of the fire fee ordinance, there was a momentary disagreement between the mayor and some council members.

"If you don't have a (motion) or a second, then it dies. Right?" Haynes said.

Council member G.P. Parker questioned the legality of simply not voting, rather than putting the ordinance to a vote on second reading and defeating it outright.

After quietly asking the mayor if the measure would die if a motion were made but failed to gain a second, newly-elected Council member Mark D. Gillespie made a motion to pass the ordinance on second reading, in the apparent expectation that it would die for lack of a second.