Dear Editor:
Bonds are a unfair tax for property owners. Property value should have nothing to do with what everyone should have to pay for the same service. Why should renters and others pay nothing? If we get the same service we should all pay the same not based on how much your property is worth.
There should be a bond tax on gas, utilities or something that we all would have to pay. People getting stopped for speeding running stop signs should have to pay a fee for bonds. They are the ones that cause wrecks that firefighters respond to. They pay nothing for the service.
Vote NO on this bond and make the elected officials do there job and figure out a better way that is fair to all. Don’t always put the burden on property owners. Many of us are retired and live on fixed income and are having a hard time already. Just because one house is worth 200 and the other is worth 400 should not mean one should pay twice as much for the same service.
Lebanon Fire District does not need a new station. Nothing wrong with what they have. (Fire Chief Gordon) Sletmoe says station was built in 1975 and does not meet 2019 fire and seismic standards. How many people live in houses built before 1975? How many of us can afford to remodel our houses?
Sletmoe says station needs to be retrofitted for earthquakes. How many earthquakes has hit this area? There is less than a 14 percent chance of a earthquake in this area.
Sletmoe says pollutants from apparatus bay endangers the health of firefighters sleeping overhead, they do not sleep overhead. First open the bay doors when starting trucks. Second firefighters should work 12 hour shifts. That way we would not have to pay for them to sleep at work. Then there would be more room in station.
Fire stations should not be a public meeting place, that is what city hall, city library, court house should be used for.
Prison guards, doctors, nurses that work in prisons have one of the dangerous jobs along with utilitie workers and a lot of others work 12 hour shifts. There is no reason for firefighters to work 24 hour shifts.
Lebanon does not need new station, they need new leadership. Vote No on measure 22-179. This is a unfair board measure.
Norman Vizina, Lebanon