Excerpts from the kcchronicle.com:
Officials at the Fox River and Countryside Fire Protection District are hoping voters will approve their latest referendum request for a nearly 17-cent tax increase April 2.
The referendum asks to increase the rate to 43.52 cents per $100 equalized assessed valuation from the fire district’s current tax rate of 26.7 cents, an increase of 16.82 cents. A single family house with a fair market value of $100,000 would have an additional $56 in taxes to pay, if it passes. The increase would bring in about $1.5 million in additional revenue, which the district needs.
The district’s last request for a 16-cent increase failed in November by 32 votes.
The department has an ambulance that has more than 100,000 miles on it and a fire engine built in 1988, both of which need to be replaced.
Part-time pay for firefighters is $13.50 per hour.
The district covers areas of St. Charles and Campton townships and the villages of Campton Hills and Wayne.
#1 by J.C. on April 3, 2019 - 10:11 AM
My bad read the numbers incorrectly, hopefully the outstanding mail in ballots will cover the difference
#2 by J.C. on April 3, 2019 - 10:08 AM
Lost by 9 in Kane County but passed by 22 in Dupage so it passed
#3 by Cmk420 on April 3, 2019 - 9:42 AM
Looks like it didn’t pass again, but only by nine votes. Results are unofficial.
#4 by Cmk420 on March 31, 2019 - 1:49 PM
Austin–To your last point, my volunteer fire department runs a refurbished ’81 Pierce as a reserve engine & it runs just fine. Don’t understand FRC anymore.
#5 by Sebastian on March 31, 2019 - 10:01 AM
Hey Guys, question.. does anyone know if elgin received a new engine for engine 3 or did they renumber engine 2 as 3? Also did they move quint 7 to station 1 and engine 1 to station 7?? Just wondering as i live in elgin and have seen a number of changes to the apparatus. Thank you in advance!
#6 by Austin on March 31, 2019 - 9:49 AM
Harry, they had 1,362 calls last year, and I think they said once that 80% are medical. They had bought one or two new ambulances in ’10, then had a very old reserve that I think they got rid of. I think another problem is they aren’t doing much maintenance on anything they own. The fact their original engines they bought aren’t used anymore is also troubling. No reason why a 9 year old engine can’t last with lower call volumes. Their neighbors St. Charles and Elburn both have older front line apparatus, yet FRC thinks they can’t do the job with “old” apparatus. Then when you get to the really small towns to the west (Maple Park, Burlington, Pingree Grove) they run some very old apparatus, but works fine. Heck Maple Park has a ’77 tanker that is still used.
#7 by Mike on March 30, 2019 - 2:03 PM
Well when this fails again maybe they will finally decide to do the right thing and end this. Stop wasting taxpayers money on this.
#8 by harry on March 30, 2019 - 12:11 PM
and yes they should never have bought a 1988 engine they would have been better off buying at least a 2008
#9 by harry on March 30, 2019 - 12:10 PM
ok the fact that they are 38 plus square miles most depts. do take the ambo shopping while I don’t know if they do because they have a few pu trucks and cars but lets say they take the ambo shopping then calls training and so on they cant possibly be that busy of a dept I know when I was last there about 5 years ago they told me they do less than a 1000 calls a year and lets say there up to 2000 a year an ambo can easily last 300 000 so that would mean anothr 5 years or so at least heck Rosemont got rid of a 1996 ford in 2016 with like 40 000 on it and they run about 2500 o 3000 runs a year
#10 by Austin on March 30, 2019 - 11:09 AM
Also to piggy back off of what BMurphy said, it is also a very spread out district. By that I mean there are little pockets all over the place, not really connected to anything. One that comes to mind is a few streets off of Smith Rd (the boarder of Kane and DuPage counties) where it is unincorporated St. Charles. The closest FRC station is 7 miles away, so things like that help to add miles to all of their apparatus. That is about the only thing I will stick up for them on, everything else is a joke in that department.
Also that ’88 engine is not even an original purchase, I’m not sure when they bought it, but it wasn’t in ’10 when the department split. The oldest one they had was I believe an early 90’s Seagrave and a Alexis also around that age. So if that ’88 engine was bought after the fact, that just proves they are wasting money and have no clue what they are doing. There is a lot of good quality used apparatus out there they could have bought instead.
#11 by BMurphy on March 30, 2019 - 12:38 AM
Harry- size comparisons regarding your prior comment:
Orland Fire Protection District: 33 square miles
New Lenox Fire Protection District: 36 square miles
Fox River and Countryside Fire Protection District: 38+ square miles
#12 by Jim S on March 29, 2019 - 5:48 PM
100,000 miles on an ambulance in 8+ years is fairly easy.
Ambulance call: to the scene, to the hospital (how far to the hospital), and then back to the station….this adds up
Fire call: (if they are like most depts. they take the ambulance on fire calls) again to the scene and back to the station
Shopping: a lot of the times the ambulance crew goes grocery shopping
Fire inspections/public education/ pre-plans: driving to each location and back to the station
All that drive time adds up over the course of 8+ years
#13 by harry on March 29, 2019 - 5:13 PM
yes it is possible for a village or town like new lenox orland and so on but a tiny little district I don’t see how
#14 by Martin on March 29, 2019 - 4:20 PM
100,000 over 9 years is possible. About 926 miles a month over the course of 9 years.
#15 by harry on March 29, 2019 - 4:16 PM
they just got an ambo about 3 years ago how is it possible that there oldest ambo that is a 2010 to have 100 000 mi on it