In extremely local news, Bell County Kentucky fire protection is venturing down the subscription-based model that led to nationwide embarrassment in Obion County Tennessee, twice.
You’ll recall the headlines about firefighters responding to structure fires and standing by while they burned because they property owners had not paid their annual fire protection fee. The Obion County firefighters were ordered by their administration to NOT take action, placing them in the unenviable position splashed across TV screens all across America.
In December Bell County KY Volunteer Fire Department shuttered two stations and initiated a subscribers fee of $30 per year for vacant land and $150 for occupied land. The department claims lack of fundage and lack of volunteers, but the County disagrees and wonders where the $6 million of county money given to the non-profit fire department since 1979 has gone. Until the two stations reopen, the county has cut off any further funding of the County Fire Department.
This is where it gets interesting.
Daily Fire Fix has done gone mining and struck gold. They found raw video of a public meeting of the Bell County Fire Volunteer Department in which enraged citizens join in shouting, arm waving, and finger pointing in what appears to develop into an unstructured confrontation of words between fire officials, lawyers and citizens. At one point police from multiple agencies appear, apparently having been summoned by concerned witnesses, maybe one of the nice ladies sitting up front where the spittle was flying..
Check out the audio report on this and other stories over at Daily Fire Fix.com
Meeting Part One
Meeting Part Two
Meeting Part Three
Other links to this story:
WBIT-TV News Video: Bell County KY Closes Two Fire Stations
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