East Contra Costa Fire Protection District Board President Joel Bryant clarified statements made by a citizens group that half the fire Board is supporting the groups efforts.
According to a press release by the East County Voters for Equal Protection (ECV), they made a presentation to the Board of Directors of the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District (ECCFPD) at the board’s monthly meeting on Monday, April 4th.
The presentation by Hal Bray provided an overview of plan which ECV proposes reallocation of current property tax revenues by 30 other districts voluntarily giving up funds and giving it to the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District.
The plan has already been rejected by county officials, county administration and elected officials at all levels. Click here for more information.
According to the ECV Press Release:
Most of the ECCFPD Directors expressed support and encouragement for the ECV’s efforts. Board President Bryant conveyed the Board’s thanks to Bray and his group for their efforts in educating the public about the issues, and urged continuing these presentations to the community.
Director Kenney, commended the outside-the-box thinking of the group, something the board had been seeking in its attempt to resolve the funding dilemma. Director Morgan also welcomed the group’s solution as an alternative to previously failed ballot initiatives. She suggested the message to the special districts include the reality that unless they participate in a solution, the outcome will be less or no fire protection and emergency services, resulting in substantial increased liability for the government agencies and special districts.
The ECV Group and it’s supporters are stating on social media that 4 of the 8 Board of Directors support the plan–note, there are 9 directors, but there was a recent resignation by a director from Oakley.
Joel Bryant, Board President and Brentwood Vice Mayor said Friday that the comments made to Hal Bray were universal and expressed appreciation for the efforts to bring awareness to the current financial challenges of the fire district, to the public, who might still be unaware of the situation.
“These comments in no way espoused support, or agreement with their proposed plan and I hope that this helps clear up the misunderstanding,” said Bryant. “Four of the board members just thanked him for giving information to the community regarding the challenges in the fire district. It had absolutely nothing to do with ECV’s position on alternative funding.”
Bryant further highlighted that the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District is working with a task force to determine from the community, whether or not a potential new ballot measure would be successful.
Steve Barr, Fire Board Member and Brentwood City Councilman, stated he recommended the issue be taken up in the Finance Committee for further review and to see if it was legally possible.
“I will not at this time want to comment on the merits of the ECV Group Proposal,” said Barr.
On Monday, the agenda item was notified to the public as a “Presentation” to the Board by the ECV Group and therefore, no action could be taken.
6 comments
This ECV Group won’t go away will it? I am not even in the District and reject their plan because it would take my tax money and put it in a district that does not serve me.
What do you mean Steve Barr would not comment, he is already on record? Someone now running for Supervisor suddenly does not have an opinion? Are you protecting him ECT? Per the link in the article:
“Based on the information I have this plan has very little chance of meeting the requirements of the revenue and taxation code. First of all and most importantly no shifting of property tax can come from school districts based on state law. That being said any calculations for other agencies based on schools contributing are wrong and would need to be recalculated,” said Barr. “Secondly once you remove school districts from the calculation, approximately 50% of the 1%, the amount required from the remaining agencies would most likely violate state law that requires any transfer of property tax to another agency in the same Tax Rate Area to not negatively effect the services provided by the transferring agency. I can assure you that in Brentwood giving away between $1.2m-$1.5m would have an effect on the services that we provide.”
Is that Santa Claus second from the left?
This ECV group is a menace to the people of ECCPD. I dont even live in the District and know they are full of crap. Why would I want any group I pay taxes to giving up their money to fund a District that does not service me on a voluntary basis? I would vote those people out of office.
Is this disguised as a hit piece? If everyone and every body knows in local government that this will not work and may be illegal according to the previous article, why keep harping on it? ECT needs to let it go. They (ECV) will fizzle out all by themselves. Why attack Bryant and Barr when the issue according to so many is impossible unless there is an underlying motive for this story. Could it be to hurt ECCFPD or the two Leaders quoted here?Either way if this idea is DOA as the scholars have stated, then ECT needs to let it go unless there is another motive by this media.
Hit piece? No. Educational, Yes! When a press release by ECV goes out stating 4 of 8 directors support them, that is misleading. The goal is to educate the public on what really happened. Their press release did not educate, it misled in our opinion.
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