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Lewisburg-area residents protest fire fee proposal

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Posted: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 4:34 pm

By Tina Alvey REGISTER-HERALD REPORTER

LEWISBURG — "Taxation without representation" was the main rallying cry of landowners who raised objections to a proposed rural fire service fee at Tuesday's city council meeting.

If the fee is adopted, it will be levied against owners of property located in the Lewisburg Volunteer Fire Department's "first due" area, outside the city limits but within the state-established area that the fire company is required to serve. City residents already pay fees that support the LVFD's operations.

An ordinance establishing the rural fee, which quietly passed a first reading in April, was met on Tuesday with a small but vocal contingent of property owners whose outlying neighborhoods will be required to shoulder as much as 44 percent of the Lewisburg Fire Department's projected budget, if the fee is adopted.

Currently, the city finances nearly 83 percent ($388,548) of the LVFD's cost of operation, which the 2014 annual report shows totaled $469,858. The balance of the department's 2014 revenue came from donations and a state insurance surtax.

If everyone in the first due area paid the designated amount of the proposed rural fire fee for their property, Fire Chief Wayne Pennington said the revenue from those fees would total another $370,500.

If all other revenue streams hold steady, the additional revenue from the rural fire fee would push LVFD's budget over the $800,000 mark. Although that figure wasn't at the top of the list of the property owners' dissatisfaction with the proposed fees, several people Tuesday complained that it was "a lot of money."

Richlands resident Jack Tuckwiller asked why the VFD answers so many medical assistance calls, noting that 318 out of the department's 774 responses in 2014 were categorized as assistance for EMS crews.

Pennington said those calls often involve "life-threatening situations," and the VFD has the staff and equipment to get to the scene quickly and thereby save lives.

Tuckwiller also questioned the amount of the fees that will, presumably, be assessed against property owners like him on the western edge of Lewisburg's first due area, when a map Pennington displayed showed the majority of calls come from the north-south Route 219 corridor.