RWS, the "right" thing happened when the municipality that was really nowhere close to this little unincorporated area generously and graciously OFFERED to extend service to these people in the first place, with a NOMINAL fee for doing so. They did not have to do that. They made him an offer he chose not to accept. He got burned (pun intended) - his mistake.
I get where you are coming from with the humanity of it all. But there are too damn many people in this country who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions!! Too many people who want someone else to step in out of the goodness of their hearts and fix the fuck-ups of others!! At some point, we will become a nation of nothing but freeloaders, unless something changes. This was a teaching moment for a lot of people - I am glad it got national press. And I would make a donation to the fire department for sticking to their guns.
Fire departments provide mutual aid to other municipalities and unincorporated areas free of charge every day across this country. There is an unincorporated area adjacent to our jurisdiction that over 75% of the time their fire department can't respond to calls in their own area, and we provide fire protection for them, and we don't charge them a dime to do it. When we have a structure fire, 3 other fire departments are paged out along with us for automatic aid. If any of those departments have a structure fire, we go to them. Hell, when we had a 7,800 gallon tanker years ago, a county in Florida requested us for a huge woods fire. The way we see it, we all get county taxpayer money to fund our departments. I guaran-fucking-tee you that the department that stood by while that home burned down runs some sort of mutual aid to another town or municipality, and doesn't charge a dime for it.
My point is, this goes all the way to the top. Sure, the guy that didn't pay the $75 bears some of the blame in this. The fact that the county had not stepped in long before this and either established a fire department, or entered into contract with this municipality that was providing the service, is mind boggling. People are stupid, and it is the job of those in power to save people from their own stupidity. The county should have stepped in long ago and not rely on these people to pay a fee. In a world where we are arguing about health care and other things, I know that isn't a popular notion and may sound utterly stupid to some of you. I just feel that everybody deserves the right to free emergency services such as police and fire protection. For the most part, everybody does have access to free police protection. Not so much with fire.
I understand your argument that we're a nation of people who want everybody else to fix our fuckups, and that's true. In general, I don't agree with it either. But you have to understand what we do, and the logic. In essence, we are responding to somebody else's fuckup. We are always responding to somebody else's mistake. We are expected to fix it, and we accept that notion by being in that particular line of service. We understand what we're getting into when we get in. It's just what we do.
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