Volunteer Fire Dept and the 2012 Election

The Dept of Inner City Emergency Response (DICER) presented an interlocal agreement to the Board for furnishing fire protection, fire fighting rescue, search and rescue, high water rescue, crime prevention, neighborhood protection, and emergency medical services to the WCID #89 District. If you'd like to know more about DICER, click here.

The term of the agreement is from December 1, 2011 to November 30, 2014 unless terminated by either party. However, the agreement has no instructions on how such termination would be effected. The vote was 4 for and 1 against to accept this agreement. I was the 1 against.

The reason I voted against this agreement was because I didn't think it necessary. We are serviced by the Houston Fire Department, from the 55 Station House on Cullen. I prefer professional fire fighters to volunteer fire fighters if my house is ablaze. Another reason I voted against this agreement was because DICER has no experience engaging in such an agreement with any other MUD. Finally, there seemed to be some agreement that land within Brunswick Lakes had been promised to DICER to build a facility for their operation within the District. When I asked more pointed questions about that, the answers were vague. Director Smalls said that there would be no cost to the District for any construction costs. Yet the DICER representative was not forthcoming with any details on how the facility would be paid for -- I can only presume that the interlocal agreement was some sort of first step toward gaining grant funds.

The other major decision undertaken at the last Board meeting was when/how to conduct the 2012 election for three of the seats on the Board. Those of you who voted in the 2010 election may recall that it was held at a woman's house in Morningside in May. Because of changes in the federal law, the state of Texas has allowed local government entities to choose to have their elections in May, move them to November to be a part of the regular general election, or not hold them at all in 2012. The Harris County Clerk had advised that any local government would not be allowed to rent the voting equipment in May due to the changes in the law that were creating havoc for them in the primary election process.

The Board chose to move the 2012 election to November to be a part of the general election. This automatically added 6 months to the terms of office of every member of the Board. The positions currently held by Directors Sharyn Smalls, Byron Watson, and Arthur Washington are up for re-election. The positions held by AK Babers and me will not be up for re-election until November 2014.

The advantage of having the election in November is that it will be held at the regular polling places that people will go to vote for the president and other elected officials. The District will only pay a pro-rated fee to be on the ballot (about half the cost of holding the election on our own in May) and the only real downside is that the candidates for our District Board will be at the very end of the ballot. Because Texas elects so many state and local officials, it will take quite some time in the voting booth before you see our election slate.