By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
The new fire district, formed in Juab County in 2001,
is doing the job residents selected it to do&emdash;get
needed fire equipment for the cities of the county.
Eureka will be getting a new $250,000 fire truck and
Levan will receive a new $55,000 brush truck. Both will
arrive in 2002.
The purchase is made possible by the formation of the
Juab County Special Services Fire District, which replaced
all municipal fire departments in the county in January
2001.
Another community which has benefited from the new
fire district is Mona&emdash;payments for their fire truck
were assumed by the new district. Mona City officials had
approved the purchase of the new truck and had been scarping
together the funds to make payments on it.
"The county and all the cities banded together because
existing tax dollars in municipalities did not provide
enough funding for the fire departments," said Mike Seely,
county administrator.
Eureka and Levan were selected as the communities most
in need of new fire trucks.
Fire-fighting equipment co-wide was becoming old and
repairs were getting more and more difficult to make on
aging equipment. The unwritten policy had been through Juab
County, that when a new engine was purchased by a community,
the old engine was passed-on to one of the other
communities.
The policy meant that some of the smaller communities
did not have new engines.
The county's population of 8,000 needed better
equipment to assure safe fire fighting and to make certain
the home-owner's fire insurance policies were not overly
high.
"The fire district was formed with the use of a .0008
percent increase on property tax that was approved in a
vote," said Seely.
Registered voters in the county and its cities the
special fire district in a 2-to-1 vote.
Since the formation of the fire district allowed the
organization has had the ability to apply for state grants
and low-interest loans. As a result, the district received a
$572,000 grant-loan package in 2001.
The package included money to provide $244,000 in
startup capital and $164,000 in grant money. The grant was
to be used to purchase two new fire trucks with a $164,000
zero-interest loan for the trucks.
"All of this was made possible by the creation of the
fire district," said Seely.
In the past, the cities did have reciprocal agreement
assist one another with fire protection. In addition. A
county fire agreement provided that fire departments would
be called on to assist with county wildfires.
Small communities like Eureka could not have afforded
the truck on its own.
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