ashe

Coop I think they do have the authority. If they were to be stupid enough to do it several things would happen. Nathan Miller would sue them and the county on behalf of the homeowners and the fire department, the residents of that end of the county would publicly call them out as fools, and they would commit political suicide.

We know they are that stupid, and hopefully they have already committed political suicide.

The commissioners have no authority in this decision.

Fire2, no I'm not a Fleetwood fireman, and not connected with any emergency service agency, I just quotes the info that I found in reading the commissioner minutes, just like any situation there are two sides to all of them. The commissioners probably need to conact each property owner in ths area and let those propert owners determine who they want to serve them.

Yes Dog I watched both the meeting with Fleetwood and the one with Deep Gap. Ask around at some of the other departments and you wont be surprised at what you hear.

Fire2 I assume you watched the tape and none of this was mentioned by the fleetwood gang. I still contend fleetwood saw an opportunity with 3.5 idiots sitting on the board and they took it. They almost got away with it until the manager intervened. The head idiot made a motion.

They have a case of sour grapes Cooper.

factsoflife must be a Fleetwood fireman - The commissioners voted on setting a tax rate for Deep Gap on June 4, 2007 and voted on the district, following an advertised public hearing on July 2 - that's a month of notification the way that I see it.

Dog, do you remember (I'm sure you do)a couple years ago when we went round and round with these wizards about their fire service? They didn't know then, and don't know now how their own system worked. They couldn't say how many of what kinds of fires they had in the previous six months. It really isn't about money. It is about having a clubhouse to hang out in and being able to run a BRT up the road once in awhile with the lights and sirens going. And the parades in town so folks can see them in the BRTs. But we need a new thread for the FD issues. This one should be the Mouth Breather problems.

It's all about the money.

Lets go over the facts again.

Deep gap fire dept established for 60 years.
Fleetwood fire dept established only since 1976
4.1 miles from deep gap
6.2 miles from fleetwood
At 6.2 miles this would remove them from any 6 mile fire district and their ISO rating would actually be a 10. Leaving it where it should be in Deep gap their iso rating would be a 6 as it is now.

Someone asked what the problem was. Well it was mentioned a few times in the meeting. 20K bucks. With the fleetwood bunch moving, unless they go south they would be even further from the Cranberry line. Note that they still have no idea where they are going to move. There are fire departments all over the country that have districts in more than one county. Theres nothing special about a county line.

Deep Gap to Cranberry Springs 4.1 miles

Fleetwood to Cranberry Springs 6.2 miles

Posted by PublicInfo back about three weeks ago.

I believe that the terms "Fire tax area" and " Fire service area" are being intentionally misused in this discussion on the county level. The final authority in the matter of the service area is the state. The authority of the tax area is the county.

The people of Cranberry Spring road want to be served by Deep Gap. Where is the problem?

Cooper, Ok do you know why the County of Ashe created a district for Deep Gap in 2007 if they had one in the 80's for this area. The County of Ashe must have not been aware of that.

Sorry, factsoflife, your facts are not complete. This area was served by Deep gap long before the Fleetwood department was formed. A signed agreement by the state Fire Marshall and the two departments that defined today's boundries was recorded in the 1980's . Long before the county had an emergency management department.

Baskings, I'm not siding with either deptartment, just saying what the commissioners minutes states when this took place, its obvious the commissioners should have did their own research and ask questions prior to just vothing on something that is presented to them

Instead of getting all butt hurt because the Watauga County departments are actually better organized, better funded, and apparently better run, Fleetwood VFD should be taking some lessons from Deep Gap on how to better serve their residents. Seriously, as stated several times, the affected citizens are very happy with the current situation. Leave it alone. Why does the Fleetwood VFD want to punish these people? Next time one of these hose jockeys starts talking about how they do what they do to serve the community and not for an ego trip, use this case to call him a liar

I keep up with the commissioners meeting regularly. I did some research on the past meeting minutes that is on the County's web site. I found the meeting minutes of the 2007 minutes that Fleetwood referenced to in their meeting. By reading the minutes it seems maybe this fire district being established for Deep Gap was sprung on the commissioners by the county emergency manangement coordinator with no notice to the commissioners that this was being presented and they took it for the right thing to do and voted on it. The time stated in the minutes says it took only 6 minutes for this to be done so there was no discussion in the meeting minutes at all by the commissioners prior to voting on it, but the resoluion they adopted states that the commissioners found and determined it was nessary for fire protection for the citizens in this area so something does smell very fishy about this. I saw in the 2008 minutes that the county manager and commissioners met with Fleetwood about this and it was stated by county manager McMillian that the emergency management coordinator would continue working with Fleetwood on this issue, but apparently that has not happened. It seems that the coordinator was working to benefit Watauga County and its fire depts. rather than the ones in Ashe County. Fleetwood stated in the commissioner meeting that they learned about this area they had served for many years with no tax revenue had been given to a Watauga Department with a fire tax imposed on these citizens without knowledge it was happening, so by reading these meeting minutes they are correct as Fleetwood was not at all mentioned in this June 2007 meeting. The commissioners should have ask questions prior to taking someones word for something and voting on it. Fleetwood just may have a real issue here with the County of Ashe and and a County Employee rather than with Deep Gap Fire Dept. and their class 6 rating

The insurance commission and the state fire marshals office may have to come to Jefferson and school some idiots. I do think the hose jockeys from fleetwood saw the opportunity with a board of idiots and played it. I dont think the deep gap hose jockeys have anything to worry about.

Cooper is right, no one in the Deep Gap are wants to pay higher insurance premiums. Leave it like it is.

Oh, yea wasn't sure on that