Some property owners in the hinterlands of Cook County might be paying more in property taxes in the future, but in exchange they would be safer if their homes and cabins caught fire. On Tuesday, May 26, 2009 Cook County volunteer firefighters Betsy Zavoral, Shawn Perich, Rod Roy, and Dick Parker presented to the county board a proposal to expand fire district boundaries to include private property from Lake Superior to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
Zavoral, a volunteer with the Maple Hill Fire Department, said the Hovland fire district has been responding to more and more calls from no service zones without recouping any related costs. The fire departments requested that the county levy private properties that are outside current service districts. The expansion would increase Hovland’s district fourfold.
Commissioner Jim Johnson pointed out that people far from fire department garages would still be more likely to lose their homes in case of fire because of the time it would take for trucks to reach them. Zavoral’s response was that their neighbors’ houses could be saved and forest fires could be prevented.
People outside fire districts still expect service, Perich said. He gets calls from insurance companies that ask about services to their customers. More and more development is taking place in remote regions, he added. “On the Arrowhead Trail,” he said, “there’s now rush hour traffic in the morning and in the evening.” Auditor-Treasurer Braidy Powers said that new fire halls would be built as population density increases throughout the county.
Commissioner Bob Fenwick wondered if providing fire services would obligate the county to provide other services as well. The land within the proposed expansions includes a very small number of private properties among a great deal of government land. What would the county’s responsibility be to someone who lives at the end of a narrow road in the middle of nowhere? he wondered. Powers wondered about the county’s responsibilities for properties that lie along roads maintained by the U.S. Forest Service and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
County Attorney Tim Scannell agreed to investigate the legalities of expanding the fire districts. The issues will be on the board’s agenda for June 9.
Leave a Reply