Red Flags and Nitwits

As is not uncommon this time of year, we have had “Red Flag” warnings the past few days, with significant winds, inland temperatures in the high nineties and humidity in the teens. Of course that has raised a new storm of complaints about the attempt by Cal Fire, which is a division of the state Forestry Department, to impose a $150 annual fee per property owner in rural San Diego County for fire protection.

This county is one of the few in the state which does not have a county fire department. It has been on the ballot, with a fee/tax ranging from $50 annually per property to $150, and has been soundly voted down every time. Riverside and Orange counties to our north despise us, because every time we have a fire state law requires them to send their county fire assets to our assistance, leaving them at risk, but when they have a fire we do not assist them because we have no assets to send.

If that makes San Diego County residents sound a bit like self centered assholes, well… It's worth noting that rural San Diego County is heavily Republican and sends Duncan Hunter and Brian Billbray to Congress.

One idiot from Lakeside, a suburb of San Diego served by county agencies, has a letter to the editor which reads in part, “I do appreciate the firefighters’ effort to help people after the fire. But I don’t feel we should pay more for services that are already paid for by tax dollars.”

Well he should check the facts. Cal Fire, being part of the State Forest Service, has a mandate to protect public lands. It does not have a mandate to protect private property, and does so only when it can do so without jeopardizing its primary mission. Those of us who live in cities pay the same taxes that this clown does, which does not include fire protection, and then we pay city taxes which do fund the city fire departments which provide us with the fire protection that we pay for and that he does not.

The operative part of that clown’s letter is “I do not feel that we should pay,” which is the great American mantra today.