Re: Your link regarding the Firefighters for hire story Hasinbad.
The location of "victim's" home is outside of any fire protection district. That means the rednecks in that area voted at some point in time to not have their property taxes increased to get a fire station set up complete with fire trucks and fire fighters. A neighboring fire protection district offered to expand their territory, but only if the residents paid an annual $75.00 fee. In essence an annual "tax" if you will, to provide fire protection services for the residents in the area.
The ex home-owner states that he forgot to pay the annual fee, and therefore was not covered within the fire department's district as per the contract.
I guess the guy should look on the bright side, in that he didn't forget to pay his homeowner's insurance, even if he wasn't adequately covered. Because if you think the fire department was mean for not covering the gent who was ten months late in paying his fire department insurance, imagine what it would be like if he was 10 months late in paying his homeowner's insurance. (even though he was under insured, as your article states.)
The difference between this guy and homeowners within fire protection districts is that this homeowner
a) knew exactly how much it would cost to have fire protection for his home
b) had a choice as to weather or not to pay the fee.
I don't have the choice as to weather or not to pay for my fire protection, my fire protection fees are rolled up in my property taxes.
I also pay for public schools, and I don't have the option to not pay for them. I don't have any children, I am not going to have any children, and at my age, I am not going to enrolling in any public schools. Yet I still pay my portion of of the cost to educate my neighbors' kids.
The news article shows this poor redneck's situation as a travesty because tragedy sells and the slant they used fit the political slant of the web site. Another source might cover this tidbit differently, instead of portraying the homeowner as just some poor sap that just got chewed up by a wholly unethical and corrupt system, but rather portraying him as a tightwad looking for some way to job the system.
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