REP. RICK MURPHY
Gilbert gets dealt one bad hand after another on the issue of fire protection for its county islands, and Mayor Steve Berman somewhat childish outbursts on this issue continues to erode whatever public sympathy the town once received.
As Tribune writer Blake Herzog wrote for Wednesday’s Tribune, a three-person panel has been appointed and will meet Thursday to begin discussions on how much the county island fire district will tax its residents to pay Gilbert for fire service.
The panel is part of a 2007 state law designed to compel Gilbert to extend fire protection to county islands that refused to annex after a private fire company withdrew. The panel’s job is to settle any disagreements between Gilbert and the independent fire district on much it will cost Gilbert to answer fire calls, and therefore what the district should pay.
Both the fire district and Gilbert appointed one panel representative each. Naturally, the fire district picked Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert (county island), a former lawyer who has been the champion of getting municipal fire protection for his neighbors without annexation. Gilbert Town Manager George Pettit is a sound choice to represent the town’s interests.
But the third panelist, the swing vote who was supposed to be somewhat independent of the two sides, turned out to be Biggs’ nomination, Rep. Rick Murphy, R-Peoria.
I don’t believe Murphy is Biggs’ puppet. But he certainly seems less than neutral and more inclined to the fire district’s point of view, as illustrated by his comment to Herzog.
“The reason (Biggs chose me), I would think, is I worked closely with Representative Biggs in crafting the bill, because there are some areas in Peoria and Glendale, Peoria in particular, that may find themselves in the same position as the Gilbert county islands,” Murphy said. “I don’t anticipate the city of Peoria will behave in the same fashion as Gilbert. I hope they don’t.”
Let’s just say it’s a good bet the fire district will get the property tax rate it wants, which is much lower than Gilbert has proposed.
Murphy became the third panelist over Gilbert’s objections because he was confirmed by the Republican majority of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. That has Mayor Berman demanding, in his special manner, that East Valley supervisors Don Stapley and Fulton Brock be thrown out of office.
Berman’s stubbornness has tainted the thinking on this issue throughout Gilbert Town Hall, and I believe it has hurt the community in the long run.
Gilbert was right on the principle that town residents shouldn’t carry the costs for county island property owners who don’t want to annex. But county and state elected officials just wouldn’t accept that a group of people could be without any option for fire protection. Gilbert appeared to be the best organization to help, so it was stuck with that responsibility.
Once it become clear that Gilbert would no longer avoid the 2007 law, the town could have reached an amicable deal, even if that meant subsidizing the county island residents at first. Healing this bitter dispute could made it possible for Gilbert to approach the fire district later about paying more, once it had evidence from actual experience about the costs of providing fire protection.
Instead, the fire district is going to be hostile for long time to any Gilbert proposal, no matter how well-intentioned. And it’s going to take even longer to convince many of these county island property owners to eventually annex and become true Gilbert neighbors.
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The Fire District actually accepted Gilbert’s numbers for Operations & Maintenance and also Capital Buy-In, so I don’t understand where you get the idea that Gilbert would ever be subsidizing the county islands. Gilbert residents pay for fire service through a combination of sales taxes, property taxes, and other revenue. All proposals from both sides have pro-rated the island share such that islanders would pay only through property taxes. However, islanders would still be paying the same sales taxes as Gilbert residents, so they would actually be paying MORE than their fair share.
The two big disputes between the Town and the District are fire hydrants and an extra fire company. If the District has its way and isn’t compelled to install hydrants (at least not on Gilbert’s amortization schedule, which is the real issue), that doesn’t mean Gilbert taxpayers will have to pay for hydrants, it just means there won’t be hydrants. Again, no subsidizing going on there.
As for the fire company, Gilbert is asking the District to pay the entire start-up costs. However, Gilbert’s own data show that the islands would only account for 2% of the capacity of a fire company. Plus, Gilbert Fire Department is already falling short on their 4:00 average response time goal (currently at 4:18). That means that Gilbert taxpayers should already be paying for a new fire company even before you add in service to the islands. Clearly, what should happen here is that Gilbert should pay 98% of the new company, District 2%. I think it would be reasonable to assume more resources would be required in the islands because of the lack of hydrants, so you could even scale up the District share, say to 4 or 5%. Either way, if Gilbert got its way, then the county islanders would actually be subsidizing the Town of Gilbert.
Thus, there is zero cause for concern that Town residents will end up subsidizing the county islands, regardless of the make-up of the new tax panel. Furthermore, the District has proposed a year-to-year recalculation of costs, compared to a 5-year fixed plan from Gilbert. So, under the District plan, it will be possible to renegotiate compensation should new evidence arise regarding the cost of fire service.
I disagree that the District would be hostile to new Gilbert proposals. Gilbert has made one proposal and refused to compromise at all; any movement on Gilbert’s part would likely be received with open arms, even if just as a basis for continued negotiations.