I appreciate and support the volunteers who donate their time and talents to our fire department. They are always willing to help the community! I love the role of special districts like the Union Rural Fire Protection District. They make a lot more sense for providing specialized service than letting a city run a fire department.

My concern with ballot measure 31-120 is with the way the city of Union has chosen to solve this issue. We already pay for fire and EMS protection. The city budget for 2023 has $259,622 for fire and $292,621 for EMS. We pay property tax for fire and $10 per month in our water bill for EMS. The city could have taken that money and done an intergovernmental contract for URFPD to provide services to our city. It would be like the contract the city has with the Union County Sheriff. It makes more sense since the funding already exists for the city and would not cost the taxpayers additional new taxes.

Instead, they came up with this annexation idea that raises our property tax by about 20%, pays URFPD $149,369 to do the job it costs the city $552,543 to fund — and the only winner is the city because they get to keep the $259,622 they don’t have to spend on fire protection. URFPD will supposedly get the existing funds for EMS, but if the city cuts that $10 off our water bill as promised, there won’t be any money, right? Given the information the city has shared, this doesn’t make sense.

These are tough times we are living in. It’s the worst possible timing for the city to ask for more taxes. I hope the voters in Union will take a hard look at this and send this back to the city of Union for a solution that doesn’t burden taxpayers.

Debbie Clark

Union