Fire Consolidation

Fire Consolidation Rebuttal to Hernando Today and WWJB Radio's position:

In my opinion, county-wide consolidation of the fire districts is premature at this time based on many critical facts that have been discussed at length over the past ten years. Many people have worked diligently to discuss county-wide consolidation, from the citizen-lead committees, to the 800 plus people that voiced their opinion at the fairgrounds in 1999, and each had varying opinions on the subject, most of which revolved around money. The previous Hernando County Fire Board, chaired by a prominent member of our community, worked for two years on this issue and came to the conclusion that services took a back- seat to the needs of HCFR wanting to collect more money to enlarge their department. Several critical issues in our community would need to be faced head-on if a county-wide consolidation were to take place which are:

• Spring Hill was voted in by a mandate of the people and would need to be abolished by a similar vote.
• Hernando Beach is a very viable volunteer department and operates at the pleasure of beach citizens.
• High Point Volunteer, operates at the wishes of their community and should be given time to iron out their problems.
• Tri-County Volunteer Dept. is as certified and equipped as HCFR.
• The City of Brooksville has an excellent fire department with a city-wide ISO rating of 4.
• Countywide consolidation would not solve the problems of all property owners. Many properties fall outside any 5 mile radius ring in (relation to fire departments) and could possibly cause people to lose their homeowners insurance or have it rise to level beyond their ability to pay for coverage based on fire department current locations.

In closing, making something bigger does not necessarily make it better and that could certainly be said when it comes to government. Consolidation of all the fire districts in Hernando County would create a massive bureaucracy, which would be fueled by our taxpayer money, and have very little oversight, in my opinion.