Letter: Morris fire station plan flawed

Letter: Morris fire station plan flawed

Randy Covington
St Johns, FL

On Tuesday, the county commission will vote to execute an agreement with the Developers of Nocatee to allow prepayment of impact fees so they can construct a new fire station. This is a bad deal for all the other county citizens who have been waiting patiently for nearly a decade for equal treatment.

Many areas in the south and west side of the county are underserved by the Fire Service. The county closed the volunteer fire service to force everyone into the “one size fits all” fire service of today. What Jay Morris did not tell you is that developers he hopes will fund his re-election campaign are more equal than all the other St. Johns County citizens he is supposed to represent.

This plan is flawed, and in my opinion, illegal, because the county will proceed with construction on a Fire Station they have no funds with which to staff. Morris’s solution is to apply for a Safer Grant. Doing so will instantly add over $1.0 million dollars annually to the Fire Service beginning in 2018, if the grant is approved. If the grant is not approved, we will be building a $2.4 million dollar fire station with no clear plan on how we will staff it. The grant will also dictate the manner in which we staff the facility. If the Federal Government needs to control our Fire Service, turn it over to them and let them pay the never ending deficits.

The Safer grant is also bad for the county because it will remove county jurisdiction over staffing levels in not only the Fire Service, but the Sherriff’s Department as the mandates eliminate the county Commission’s and Sheriff’s sovereignty over such decisions. This is the plan Jay Morris wants you to swallow.

He has also been dishonest in his portrayal of the terms. In the meeting he first floated this plan; he said the developers had “donated” the land. They did not; it was part of their DRI development agreement to provide land for the needed future infrastructure to serve the new residents. He said they had agreed to purchase the equipment. They did not; they only agreed to pre-pay the fees which would be fine. They have done nothing over and above what they have been required to do under their DRI, they and Morris want you to believe we the citizens of the county should take this risk because they are such nice and generous people.

The problem is Morris’s push to move the county down a path that will increase deficits in the Fire Service and use Barack Obama as his vehicle to spend in deficit, all to the detriment of those citizens less well-heeled than the developers of Nocatee and to the detriment of our children’s future prosperity.

Nocatee is a CDD, they can sell bonds to build infrastructure and they can impose fees for items such as operating a fire station. I they need this, let the residents pay for it, we are not, at this moment in time able to make this happen without it damaging an already fiscally challenged county. The Commission should reject this cynical attempt by Jay Morris to line his campaign coffers at the expense of county residents. The question is, will Ron Sanchez and Rachael Bennett allow the continued fire service apartheid against the less wealthy and rural constituents they represent, who continue to be endangered by the cronyism of such actions?