Mariposa's original daily updated online newspaper
Mariposa's original daily updated online newspaper
Letter to the Editor
Vote No on the County CSA
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I attended the Board of Supervisors meeting yesterday. The attendance dwindled to about 5 or
6 people and the fun began.
One item on the agenda concerned the forming of a CSA which, if passed, will affect almost
every property owner for the next 15 years. It will add $80.00 to the tax bill of almost every property owner in the County
every year for 15 years.
As of yesterday the count was over 7100 owners and counting.
The purpose is noble. The money is to be used to buy (lease purchase) new fire engines and
maintain and improve fire stations throughout the county.
This is another mortgaging scheme to put the county further into debt. The plan is to obtain the
fire engines on a lease purchase deal and retire the debt with the monies collected from the property owners.
When first proposed the CSA was going to be for 5 years and only fire engines and water tenders
were to be purchased with the money. Now it has escalated to 15 years and includes upkeep on fire stations and lease
purchase instead of outright purchase. When you go to buy a vehicle if you do the math it is always cheaper to purchase
outright instead of lease purchase.
Now for the good part . The item on the agenda was the resolution to form the CSA and the funds
($18,000) to implement it. One of our supervisors (Janet Bibby) has been absent for medical reasons for the past few weeks.
Now when money is involved it takes a four fifth vote to pass. This means in order to go forward with the CSA and the funds
everyone present on the board would have to vote in the affirmative. It became obvious that Brad Aborn wanted to put off the
vote until Janet returned since her district would not be represented in this important vote. It also seemed that
Lyle Turpin was going to go along with Brad.
Now the fun begins.
The lame duck separated out the items . He made two motions, one to form the CSA and one for the
funding. Now the CSA alone did not have to have 4/5, it needed a simple majority to pass. Lyle jumped the fence and voted
with the lame duck and Supervisor Fritz and so the measure passed. Then the motion for the money was made and defeated with
Supervisor Aborn voting against. You would think that that would be a deterrent. Alas,
I had a conversation with Rick Benson CAO, (the tail who wags the dog) saying that
he would have to bring the funding matter back to the board. Lo and behold he then
told me that this was not the case because he had been given a mandate to go forward and would find the money in the budget
somewhere to fund it. (Take that you board. I can do what I please!!)
I would like to suggest that the property owners in this
county defeat this measure. You have to vote no to the CSA. You must vote. Only those votes received will be counted and
tallied. If you don't vote no you will allow those who rally their friends and neighbors to prevail.
We need the engines and water tenders and they should be a priority in this county. The method
being used is wrong. We need better government in this county. Defeat this measure, vote on Tuesday to make a change in the
board and in January with a new board in place we can find a better way of doing business.
Ruth Catalan
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