Ouch! I paid my fire taxes

I got my receipt for my combined Monroe County and Town Of Sweden taxes from Town of Sweden Tax Receiver, Theresa Weed, this week dated February 4, 2013. I noticed down on the left hand side under special districts the Brockport Fire District tax which wasn't on last year's tax receipt. In my case the additional amount was $91.24 because my house is assessed at $79,500.00 and the Fire District tax rate is $1.15 per thousand.

When I was paying for fire protection in my Village of Brockport taxes the rate was about $0.81 per thousand.

So with the fire district I am paying about $100.00 more a year in taxes.

I voted against the fire district. I was getting good fire protection service before from the Village of Brockport and now with the Fire District my taxes for fire protection has gone up 30% in the first year and there have been no reduction in my Town or Village taxes. The fire district can set their own budget and tax whatever they want. I am waiting for next year when they will probably go up even more.

Why did the voters vote for this new layer of government with the inevitable increase in taxes? Thomas Frank addresses this question in his book "What's The Matter With Kansas? where he describes the phenomenon of voters being carried away by emotional issues and voting against their own self interests.

Some of the framers of our constitution were skeptical about democracy fearing mob rule and, of course, Aristotle in his famous book, The Republic, had the same fear.

We have seen this phenomenon come to pass in Brockport where people were lied to by their politicians in the Towns of Clarkson and Sweden and the Village of Brockport. And now we must pay.

Luckily I can afford the extra $100.00 bucks and I hope our fire people enjoy their shiny new equipment, their future new fire house, and the inevitable paid over night fire fighters as the volunteer force dwindles further.

While the Mayor wants to seek a grant to study the consolidation of the  layers of government, last year she supported the new additional layer of government as did the trustees. Makes no sense does it. She talks consolidation out of one side of her mouth while she adds a new layer of government on the other. And the new layer of government, the fire district, doesn't come cheap. All us Brockporters are now paying more, significantly more.