Voters in the Animas and Hermosa Cliffs fire protection districts are being asked to approve the dissolution of those two entities. They should vote “yes.” These are carefully thought-out moves that will conclude a complicated, but important, process that has been unfolding for more than a decade. They deserve broad support.
What these two ballot questions do not offer, however, is the opportunity to refight long-lost battles, revive ancient grievances or rehash the events of the last dozen or so years. The fundamental shape and structure of firefighting and emergency services in Durango and the surrounding area has been debated, argued about and, in the end, agreed upon by the voters. There is nothing in these two votes that will change that.
Voting will be held from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 11. Both districts use the same polling place: 142 Sheppard Drive, Durango. (DFRA Station 1). Replacement or mail-in ballots may be picked up by appointment through 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7 – at 862 Main Avenue, suite 215, for Hermosa Cliffs, (970) 259-2612) – or at 142 Sheppard Drive for the Animas district, (970) 382-6001.
All of this traces back to 2002 when the Durango Fire Department, the Animas and the Hermosa Cliff fire protection districts and an ambulance service came together as the Durango Fire & Rescue Authority. The idea was to manage the combined agencies as one entity by offering better service, with the resultant efficiencies and economies of scale. And in many ways, things have worked out as hoped. DFRA does function as a single force, service is good and costs do seem to be in line.
At the same time, though, the authority had been a bureaucratic mess, with multiple boards – some with little or no authority – and different funding sources. That situation persisted after the voters in 2006 rejected a plan that would have instituted a district-wild property tax to pay for fire protection.
That plan went down to defeat at the polls. So, too, did an almost identical effort in 2011.
Both died for the same reason: By instituting a district-wide property tax, the fire protection plan would have amounted to a large tax increase for city of Durango residents, the municipal government of which is accustomed to paying for emergency services with sales-tax revenue. It is a classic urban-rural dispute, but one that prevented fire district consolidation for years.
All that was sorted out last year with an imaginative solution to combine the Animas and Hermosa Cliff districts, which had fewer complicating issues with revenue, and allow the city of Durango to sign a 15-year contract for emergency services to be paid for out of its general fund (which is to say, sales-tax money).
Part of the point was to eliminate the unnecessary and redundant duplication of boards, the attendant of cost record keeping and the potential threat of unwarranted conflict. Simply put: All the extra bureaucracy is unneeded.
To do that, however, requires that the Animas and Hermosa Cliffs protection districts be formally, legally dissolved. And that requires these votes.
But again, this is effectively procedural. We have all been through some government procedure at the end of which, after all the requisite hoops have been cleared, the functionary behind the counter stamps your document with an official seal, and the deal is done. That is part of a process that began more than a decade ago.
Vote “yes’ to dissolve the Animas and Hermosa Cliff fire protection districts.
