Vote no on 4A

Grady wrote: I should not have posted SC's address, it was a copy and paste. I publicly apologize to SC for my in-attention. I have asked her to please edit the quoted portions to remove her address.

Sharon I apologize.

To Kassk20
your post makes absolutely no sense. OK so there isn't 2 ECFD unions. there is only 1 union and 1 PAC supported by the same folks.

FYI

The Elk Creek Firefighter and Emergency Service Association is not a PAC. There is one firefighter union mentioned in the Friends of Elk Creek Fire donation list on the SOS Tracer site.

The Elk Creek Fire District can accept donations, as does the Elk Creek Fire and Emergency Services Association. As a special district, donations to the fire district are not tax deductible, however donations to the Association are tax deductible.

Donations to the Fire District go toward purchasing firefighting and EMS equipment.

Donations to the Association go toward purchasing protective equipment for the firefighters and toward meals and other support activities.

Donations to either the Fire District or the association can be ear-marked for a particular purpose.

Donations can be made by check to “Elk Creek Fire District” or “Elk Creek Firefighter and Emergency Service Association”.

http://www2.elkcreekfire.org/make-a-donation.html

As per above "Donations to the Association go toward purchasing protective equipment for the firefighters and toward meals and other support activities" and their support of the mill levy increase would be in keeping with the "mission" statement above.

http://501c3lookup.org/elk_creek_fire_r ... port_team/

Personal identifiable information has been removed from a few previous posts in this thread, at the request of the original poster.

We would like to take a moment to thank everyone for their participation here, in this thread and beyond. Despite this being a contentious community issue, this discussion has remained civil, not needing to be split out, moved to the Ring, locked, or any posts deleted (not that we do either of the two latter). We are deeply appreciative that all viewpoints in the community can be, and are, expressed, issues debated, questions asked and answered, and opinions considered so that the community as a whole can benefit from information that they may not have considered themselves otherwise. This helps everyone become better informed, and hopefully more actively involved in the organizations that serve us all. We firmly believe that an actively involved community is a strong and healthy community, and that begins with publicly sharing information openly and honestly, listening to others, and making choices that fit best with our own personal principles and ethical beliefs. Thank you for sharing your information with all of us here, we're grateful to live and work in such a vibrant, caring, independent-minded, close-knit community.

The Staff of My Mountain Town

Unless audited in detail (suggest a www site be developed to in essentially real time display ALL revenues and expenses) the following is subject to failing the BS test:
"As per above "Donations to the Association go toward purchasing protective equipment for the firefighters and toward meals and other support activities" and their support of the mill levy increase would be in keeping with the "mission" statement above."

ANYTIME the "mission statement" is trotted out .....be very suspicious.

deltamrey wrote: Unless audited in detail (suggest a www site be developed to in essentially real time display ALL revenues and expenses) the following is subject to failing the BS test:
"As per above "Donations to the Association go toward purchasing protective equipment for the firefighters and toward meals and other support activities" and their support of the mill levy increase would be in keeping with the "mission" statement above."

ANYTIME the "mission statement" is trotted out .....be very suspicious.

I wasn't trotting out anything. I was relaying the facts about the service organization. I am neither a firefighter, a member of the service organization, a member of Friends of Elk Creek Fire, a member of Colorado Union of Taxpayers (CUT) nor have I donated a penny to any of these organizations and I have spent no money on supporting or opposing the mill levy increase issue.

In the "olden" days a volunteer fire departments service organization was called names such as the "woman's brigade" and many of their activities included bake sales, rummage sales, other fund raisers, serving meals to the firefighters on a fire line and various other activities related to Health - General and Rehabilitative.

Elk Creek Fire Fighter & Emergency Service Association is a 501(c)(3) organization and they have the same designation as any tax exempted Tea Party group - Health - General and Rehabilitative.

And that is why I put "mission" in quotes since I don't have a copy of their charter or any exact wording from them about their activities. I was giving you a general explanation of what a volunteer fire departments service organization is.

If you have questions or challenges for them, then unless you have all the facts lined up in a row, I would contact them or look over the information at the link I posted above.

http://501c3lookup.org/elk_creek_fire_r ... port_team/

So the next time you claim I am "trotting" something out (and all the implications that word has attached to it) I would ask you to bring the your facts to the table.

Everything else is opinion.

deltamrey wrote: Unless audited in detail (suggest a www site be developed to in essentially real time display ALL revenues and expenses) the following is subject to failing the BS test:
"As per above "Donations to the Association go toward purchasing protective equipment for the firefighters and toward meals and other support activities" and their support of the mill levy increase would be in keeping with the "mission" statement above."

ANYTIME the "mission statement" is trotted out .....be very suspicious.

So you make a donation to ECFDES association, with the to buy a set of turn outs and instead of using that money to buy gear the association turns around make a contribution to a PAC

So in the past when I have sent my donation to these folks from the little begging letter they send out, it never said we will be using your money to campaign to take more of your money. Those letters said it was to help make dinners and buy some equipment.

ELK CREEK my donations have officially STOPPED!


3500.00 from the volunteers and 1500 from the union folks and a trickle from trill. So basically 98% (ish) of the support for this initiative comes from ONLY the Elk Creekers.

I also saw the Letter from CUT. It is my understanding that letter only went to business owners as they will have the most significant impact of this tax issues. commercial property is taxed at nearly 4x the rate of home owners. the Conifer surround NEEDS our local businesses and if this is the line between them being open or closed, Let's vote NO and keep our local businesses open.

Forest Fellow has started a new thread on the campfire and is claiming to have received a post card full of lies.

I would invite all of you to that have questions to review the "long since corrected" copy of the audit that clearly substantiates the claim of Elk Creek grossly overspending the budget. reference page 25
BUDGETARY COMPLIANCE
In fiscal year 2012, General Fund expenditures exceeded amounts shown on the budget by $260,938.

Grady wrote:

deltamrey wrote: Unless audited in detail (suggest a www site be developed to in essentially real time display ALL revenues and expenses) the following is subject to failing the BS test:
"As per above "Donations to the Association go toward purchasing protective equipment for the firefighters and toward meals and other support activities" and their support of the mill levy increase would be in keeping with the "mission" statement above."

ANYTIME the "mission statement" is trotted out .....be very suspicious.

So you make a donation to ECFDES association, with the to buy a set of turn outs and instead of using that money to buy gear the association turns around make a contribution to a PAC

What PAC?

KINCAIDSPRINGS wrote: Forest Fellow has started a new thread on the campfire and is claiming to have received a post card full of lies.

I would invite all of you to that have questions to review the "long since corrected" copy of the audit that clearly substantiates the claim of Elk Creek grossly overspending the budget. reference page 25
BUDGETARY COMPLIANCE
In fiscal year 2012, General Fund expenditures exceeded amounts shown on the budget by $260,938.

Also see page III in the narrative portion of the same document...

“the largest dollar variance was for expenditures related to the District’s wild land fire suppression activities carried out under the CRRF [Cooperator Resource Rate Form] agreement” (page III).

http://www.elkcreekfire.org/ECFD/Announ ... 0FINAL.pdf

And as stated in the Chiefs 2014 budget proposal...

"When the district sends assistance to other jurisdictions past the mutual aid period, we are reimbursed for our expenses and the use of our apparatus. That reimbursement varied from nothing prior to 2011 to $298,113 last year. As this program should be treated as an enterprise fund, we have moved all revenue and expense to a separate fund."

http://www.elkcreekfire.org/ECFD/Announ ... Budget.pdf

FYI

Not all the money that the Elk Creek Fire and Emergency Services Association gets are from donations. In fact a lot of the money they receive is not in the form of donations. There is a can trailer that generates money, a car wash last spring that generated money etc. So, the members have worked for a good portion of this money and yes they get to vote on what to spend it on, and it was voted to donate this money to helping the friends of Elk Creek because the members of ECFD 100% support the mill levy. Yes, most of what the membership votes to spend their money on is supplies/equipment that benefit this district.