Jackson Township trustees urged to sign with SHJFD

To the editor:

Jackson Township Trustees Brad Hart, Chad Frazer and Steve Edingfield recently held two poorly attended public input meetings and asked for trial votes to gauge whether people favored to sign with Mowrystown (Southern Highland Joint Fire District) or the Paint Creek Joint EMS/Fire District.

The votes favored Mowrystown both times, 8 to 3 the first time and 9 to 2 the second.

The trustees now say they will try to go door-to-door to get more input to help them decide. Sadly, they have waited too long and really don’t have the time to do a good survey, either in person or by mail.

The chief from Mowrystown and the assistant chief from Paint Creek were at the last meeting and answered many questions about their services for the 15 or so residents there.

Many of the questions were good and some were “doomsday” predictions and “red herrings” intended to confuse the issue. It all really comes down to this.

If we sign with Mowrystown:

1. It will cost us within just a few dollars of half what we would have to pay Paint Creek. We already have enough money for Mowrystown. You’ll have to find approximately another $50,000 to sign with Paint Creek.

2. We won’t have a price-raising union with their hands in our pockets.

3. We will have virtually the same people (including Paint Creek) responding to us and an improved level of service – thanks to the countywide mutual aid arrangement.

4. Our influence over the district’s decisions will be 1 vote in 4 at Mowrystown instead of just 1 vote in 10 at Paint Creek. Thus we can make sure we don’t get stuck paying for somebody else’s union-induced dreams of grandeur.

5. We will finally have viable service for the south and west areas of Jackson due to the new station at Sugar Tree Ridge and yet still have a lot of very fast mutual aid in the north and east area because of Paint, Marshall and Brush Creek up there.

6. We will have a real chance of our money getting us a Fire and/or EMT station in our township – something we will never get if our money is sent to the population centers that control the Paint Creek district.

7. We will be protected from being connected to the city of Hillsboro and hoodwinked into paying for the financial train wreck they are headed for.

8. We will be investing our money in ourselves by strengthening a fire district in the part of the township (and county) that really needs it. That is good protection against the forming of a single countywide fire district that a union can then take over.

If we sign with Mowrystown, we get everything we had plus we bring Mowrystown onto our team plus we have a real voice about spending, plus we are safe from the dramas and unions around Hillsboro, plus we have a chance to have a station in our township…all at a price we can afford and already have the money for.

If we sign with Paint Creek, we get nothing we didn’t have before and that means we do get their union troubles and costs plus their politics plus their majority influence over our money plus less coverage in the south and west areas plus it costs us twice as much plus we have to pull another $50,000 out of who-knows-where.

That’s the real bottom line. Signing with Mowrystown is the only choice that even makes sense. We should have signed with them a year ago.

Sincerely,
Jim Moore
Jackson Township