Aug. 06--LENOIR -- Members of the Collettsville, Patterson and Blowing Rock volunteer fire departments filled nearly half the seats in the City-County Chambers Monday night as the Caldwell County Board of Commissioners considered giving them a bigger chunk of federal funding.
They got the money -- and a show.
The board's 4-1 vote of approval came after an extended, heated discussion between advocates, including Patterson Fire Chief Reggie Ford and Commissioner Randy Church, and the one commissioner who opposed it, Clay Bollinger, who called it unfair because residents in other parts of the county already are subsidizing those that will receive the money: He noted that Caldwell received $122,107 from the federal funding in 2012 but spent $246,551 last year on services in those districts, including communications and EMS services.
Church also is the treasurer of the Collettsville fire department and has been a volunteer firefighter for 32 years, which led to a pointed exchange with Bollinger, who suggested Church should recuse himself from voting on the issue because of his personal interest. Church bristled at the suggestion.
"This is not a matter of personal gain for me," Church said.
Bollinger repeatedly used the term "unfair," and Church objected to that too. "This is not unfair, sir," he said.
The proposal that sparked the disagreement called for the county to allocate those three fire departments a total of 30 percent of the money it receives from so-called PILT funds -- or payments in lieu of taxes -- from the federal government to pay for fire, rescue, schools, road maintenance and other services in the Pisgah National Forest and other federal lands within the county. Caldwell has received PILT funds since 1976.
Bollinger said that although the three departments don't receive property taxes from the sizable amount of federal land in their territory, the U.S. Forest Service steps in whenever there is a serious forest fire, which doesn't happen in other districts, and the departments appear to have more than adequate funds and facilities compared to other departments in more populous districts.
In light of recent heavy rains and flooding that have hit the northern part of the county, particularly Collettsville, Bollinger said he would be in favor of a one-time-only allocation but was opposed to making it permanent.
County commissioner Chris Barlowe said he supported the proposal because the fire departments are denied the tax revenue from the federal lands in their districts.
Copyright 2013 - News-Topic, Lenoir, N.C.
