West fire district voters say no third time
AIMEE JUAREZ and
Herald Staff Writers
MANATEE - For a third time, voters rejected the West Manatee Fire District's request for a proposed ad valorem tax at the polls on Tuesday.
Of the 18,551 votes cast within the district, a difference of 615 votes doomed the fate of the agency's proposed ad valorem tax. According to unofficial final results, 9,583 residents voted against the measure, compared to 8,968 who voted in favor of it.
The ad valorem tax would have allowed fire officials to raise property taxes by up to 50 cents for every $1,000 of taxable property value.
The tax would have brought an additional $1.6 million to the agency's $4.6 million budget, which would have been used to hire 12 additional firefighters and enhance firefighting equipment.
Disheartened by the agency's third loss, West Manatee Fire Chief Andy Price is pessimistic about finding future funding for its district.
"There isn't really many ways, this is it," Price said. "We don't get any funding from the state, city or county. We're going to continue doing what we can."
Voters rejected the tax because it got tangled in a slew of other taxes that are being raised, Price said, like property taxes.
West Manatee Fire now has a few options to evaluate as it copes with defeat.
One of them is to lobby state legislators to raise the assessment tax homeowners currently pay, said West Manatee Fire's spokesman Capt. Ernie Cave, but that still wouldn't be enough to hire 12 additional firefighters.
The agency could also wait until the next regular election in 2006 to pitch the ad valorem tax to voters again, Cave said. "But the next course of action is up to the chief and the board of fire commissioners," Cave said.
The agency had wanted to hire additional manpower to meet federal and state safety laws, which require four firefighters be present at the scene of a fire before an interior attack can be conducted inside a burning structure.
"We hope that this failure will not cause any undue hardship for residents who are being protected to a lesser degree than what it used to be," Cave said.
