From the CSD's Budget Committee, consisting of directors Paula Deel and Margie Roberts, Paula Deel shepherd an agenda item for a five-dollar increase in your burn permits. This raises the existing $20 annual fee to $25.

    From the audience, I questioned the justification for the increase as there was no supporting documentation for the increase.

    As with many CSD agenda items, there was no professional research or study done to justify the agenda item. Only the simpleton wobble in someone's mind that let's stick another increased fee to the public. It will help balance our insatiable spending and stipends.

    Like many agenda items, this was simply a thought placed on the agenda that was unstructured. These items are discussed at ridiculous length by the board causing the CSD meetings to go on for unnecessary hours. This drives out any public interest to attend the meetings.

    Without knowing what the costs are in processing a burn permit, I questioned the board as to whether the fee should only be $5 or possibly even free as a service to the taxpaying public.

    But the CSD chairwoman and agenda item sponsor Paula Deel retorted with her brilliance that theoretically a burn permit applicant could come into the office and chat for an hour taking up CSD personnel time, and that might cost $40!

    The director repeatedly rattled that the fee had not been increased for years and that alone justified the public paying more.

    While labor has certainly gone up, the handling of documents through electronics has certainly gone down, and without any basic pencil work on the actual costs, the board was blindly voting on the matter... which the board blindly did.

    Some governmental entities only handle burn permits online. Thus, only incurring the minimal cost of online processing.

    In what can only be considered yet another CSD vote based on ignorance, the CSD Board unanimously voted for the increase.

    While I was disappointed in seeing yet another bad vote by the CSD, it doesn't impact me. Over the many years that I have lived in Newberry Springs, I have never taken out a burn permit.

    With the rate increase, for many there is now a lesser incentive to get a permit.