[Goldwingnut]

Originally Posted by villagetinker

Don,

I really wish there was a good UNDERSTANDABLE explanation of the proposal prior to the vote. I was so confused by the wording of the proposal and then the following discussions that ii appears I made mistake. Your comments appear to be spot on.

I tried, but my hands were very tied because I would be voting on these issues in upcoming meetings so I was very limited on what could be said. I tried to get an official response to counter some of the misinformation that was being put out, but there appeared to be other agendas at play that didn't align with my thinking, and I was overruled. There was enough information available that an educated and approximate amounts could have been put forth by both parties if they had cooperated to provide a clear picture.

The ugly truth of the issue that went undiscussed was that had the IFD passed, all FD and transport costs would have had to be removed from the county budget (across the board property tax rate decrease) to prevent double taxation for the same services. A new tax structure would have had to be established for both FDs to cover their costs. This would have resulted in two similar sized budgets for the two FDs with 80% of the tax base paying for one and 20% paying for the other. The county residents would have seen a huge increase to cover both fire and transport service costs while Villages residents would have seen a per house decrease in fire protection cost plus a smaller increase in transport service costs. Again, it's just math, and math has no opinions, biases, or agendas, only facts.

The County residents would have been the most negatively impacted and had absolutely no say in making the decision.