Maszman Speaks!

For any­one involved in the fire ser­vice, this arti­cle on fire dis­trict costs is not news. As the num­ber of vol­un­teers has dropped, they’ve hired paid fire­fight­ers to replace them. But there’s more than just salaries to deal with, and the costs add up. Attempts to reverse the decline in vol­un­teers have only been mar­gin­ally effec­tive — there are far more alter­na­tives avail­able for peo­ple today and it’s hard to com­pete. This trend is the future, at least for sub­ur­ban districts.

The gen­eral pub­lic, as shown in the arti­cle, has been less than active in its par­tic­i­pa­tion with elec­tions in the com­mis­sion dis­tricts. All of the infor­ma­tion is in the pub­lic record, no FOIA required. It’s time for every­one to get involved. Of course, con­sid­er­ing aver­age elec­tion turnout, it’s time for the hand­ful of folks that vote to get involved.

Dis­claimer: I am an inac­tive life mem­ber of the West Brighton Fire Depart­ment. Unlike a com­mis­sion dis­trict, West Brighton is an inde­pen­dent non-profit cor­po­ra­tion that con­tracts with the Town of Brighton to pro­vide fire ser­vices in the dis­trict. Also unlike a com­mis­sion dis­trict, they are sub­ject to annual finan­cial audits at the request of the town. There are no com­mis­sion­ers and fund­ing comes from town taxes as a sep­a­rate line item.

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