Title: GRFD Annexation: A Sour Taste
Art: August 31, 2007
In July 2004, after helping get Council Persons Dankwerth, Parish and Gillaspie, (and the since defeated Conny Culver)-, elected, these four voted to allow Godler Ranch Fire District (GRFD) to annex the Town Hall facilities, which was being serviced at no charge by Rural Metro Fire Department. In addition, Rural-Metro was turned down when the sought a variance to build a new fire station just north of Fry's on La Canada. Subsequently, GRGD was given a variance to chop down a hill across the street, behind the pre-school just north of Walgreens.
Once GRFD annexed the Town Hall, they were in a position to annex contiguous communities, and that's what happened.
Basically, Rural Metro saw they were going to continue to lose subscribers so they agreed to a merger. The merger went into effect on April 1, 2007.
As homeowners starting getting their new Rural Metro fire service bills, people realized----too late, that Rural Metro was billing on behalf of GRFD. Many rates increased dramatically. Some homeowners with large parcels, (GFRD charges by assessed value, whereas Rural Metro charged on home square footage), saw their rates increase by as much as 300%.
Perhaps a new town council not indebted to any entity will see fit to re-visit this issue and even consider another Fire District, (La Canada Fire District, for example) to enter into Oro Valley or maybe consider other options, like Oro Valley having their own fire service.
Who does the present agreemenbt benefit? Easy answer is, without doubt, it benefits GFRD. It certainly didn't benefit me or the thousand of other residents who had no choice, but to pay these new escalated rates.
Click here for a more detail discussion of the issue.
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