Last month I tried to warn our community about the Mayor taking over the county fire districts by stacking the boards of trustees.  Today, I learned Councilman Dan Johnson has taken the first steps to merge the city and suburban fire departments.  Johnson filed a resolution asking the state legislature to look at merging the city and county fire departments.  I strongly disagree and oppose this legislation.

Please call Councilman Johnson at 574-1121
and ask him to withdraw this resolution.

Recently, the Mayor ignored the outcome of a fire board election in Pleasure Ridge Park.  Instead of seating the winner of the election, the Mayor handpicked someone to serve on PRP’s Fire Board.  I warned that the Mayor was positioning his people so he would have more control over the suburban fire departments.

The county fire departments have millions of dollars that are collected from suburban property owners and that money should stay in their fire district. This is the first step in trying to grab the budgets of every suburban fire department.  This income stream can be bonded producing hundreds of millions of dollars, like a mortgage, which can be immediately spent.  The money, however, does not necessarily go toward fire equipment, as it should, but could go to Cordish Company or other less seemly projects; like was the mayor’s intention with the Library Tax.

Abramson decided years ago not to honor the contract of city fire fighters.  As a result, he lost a lawsuit, multiple times, and now has dumped the responsibility of paying the city fire fighters back pay on the next administration.

A merger of city and county fire districts means that taxes collected in the former county could be spent anywhere in the city.

A merger would also abolish volunteer fire departments and put the city in control of all operations of every fire department in Louisville.

You need look no further than the city fire departments’ condition of their stations and their equipment to know they are underfunded, unappreciated, and ill-equipped.

As always, I will continue the fight to keep our suburban fire departments running independently of the Mayor.

Our county fire departments do a fine job in protecting our community and efficiently utilize our tax dollars to best benefit the citizens.

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