WEST POINT - A judge has ruled in favor of a small Calaveras County fire district whose revenues from a voter-approved tax assessment have been tied up for more than a year by a lawsuit, forcing dramatic cuts in department staffing and service.
Assigned Judge John E. Griffin ruled last week that businessman William Doherty and Concerned Citizens for Responsible Government failed to prove that West Point Fire Protection District did anything wrong when it began collecting an assessment that 62 percent of district voters approved in April 2007.
News of the ruling reached West Point on Wednesday afternoon.
West Point Fire Protection District Board Chairman Al Arieta said he had no initial comment on the legal victory "other than that we are ecstatic."
Arieta said the board would meet tonight to hammer out a formal statement on the ruling. "We need to talk to our attorneys," Arieta said.
That's because the victory in Calaveras County Superior Court does not mean the case is over.
Both Doherty and his attorney, Bob Reeve of Valley Springs, said they plan to appeal the case to the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento.
That means it is not yet clear whether the department can begin spending the $150,000 per year in assessments that voters approved. Fire officials are eager to hire back the department's paid firefighters, who were laid off this year after the district board froze the money in an account because of uncertainty over the lawsuit.
The assessment was set at $45 a year on lots with bare land and $87.58 for land with buildings. That brings in enough to have at least one seasoned firefighter on duty at all times, as long as the ranks otherwise are filled by low-cost firefighter interns.
But Reeve argued the tax is illegal for a number of reasons, including that it inappropriately taxes the owners of "wild" land that already has coverage from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, and that the tax amount was not proportionate to the kind of property being protected.
Attorneys for West Point Fire District argued the assessment was carefully crafted, and the different rates for bare land and houses meet the legal requirements for proportionality with the kind of property protected.
Many residents have been outraged by the lawsuit and have been holding barbecues and other fundraisers to help pay legal costs and to keep the largely volunteer department afloat.
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This is great news for the West Point Fire District. As the neighboring Fire District we have had to roll on quite a few of their calls to pick up the slack, which has also strained our resources.
ReplyDeleteThe Plaintiff's have caused an enormous amount of damage and incurred costs to themselves far in excess of the amount of taxes they would ever pay on their properties.