Editor:
Up till the current Town Crier (the Dec. 6 issue), [there’s been] not a whisper nor a whimper about the new assessment by CAL FIRE. To those of us who received this double billing at the time of regular tax notices, it was a jolt.
To not have it caused a flurry of verbal activity unheard of. To call it a tax would classify it as taxation and needing a two-thirds vote [of the state legislature] to pass, so it was hidden under the term assessment by Gov. Brown and his Democratic Senate buddies.
[We] have had no information or articles in the Town Crier, so [I] turned to the North County Times’ (San Diego), Oct. 28 issue, who reported the new fee can only go to fire prevention programs — not for engines or firefighters.
This assessment was dreamed up by the politicians in Sacramento and Brown to line their pockets as I see it; under title of personal agendas.
The article goes on to say, we will end up paying more money for less services.
Wait till we get a bill for Brown’s “Hi-speed railroad” to nowhere, he plans on backing in the farming valley of central California.
Robert Miller
Hemet
Editor’s Note: Mr. Miller’s letter refers to the article in the Dec. 6 Town Crier, which provides information about appealing the fee. The original article appearred in June 2011, when the fee was included in the 2011-12 budget legislation. Between those two issues, the Town Crier has published 16 other articles about the fee — from Gov. Brown’s veto, to his signature, the debate over the amount of the fee, the forestry board’s failed efforts to lower the fee, to the announcement that the bills were in the mail and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association’s litigation filed this fall.
We encourage all readers to subscribe to the Town Crier, that way you won’t miss the kind of articles which Mr. Miller wishes he would have read sooner.
