Opinion

In the next few weeks, 10,991 Plumas County residents will find a $150 bill in the mail from the state. The bill is actually an illegal tax to help pay for wildfire protection.

Legislators, citizens and taxpayers associations are speaking out against the illegal tax that will affect about 825,000 state residents. The fire prevention tax is meant to generate more than $85 million in revenue for the state to help pay for fire-prevention in State Areas of Responsibility (SRAs).

President Franklin D. Roosevelt called Dec. 7, 1941 “a date which will live in infamy” after the surprise Japanese attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Most Americans are too young to remember that early Sunday morning raid 71 years ago that killed 2,225 servicemen and wounded 1,143 more, sank or damaged all eight American battleships in the harbor and thrust our country into the fray of World War II.

While the attack on Pearl Harbor may be a distant memory conveyed through old black and white news footage, most Americans are young enough to remember the horror wreaked by 15 terrorists armed with box cutters who hijacked three commercial jetliners full of civilians and flew them into the World Trade Center buildings in New York City, and the Pentagon in Arlington, Va. Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.

This move caught everyone by surprise.

Sometimes criticized for being indecisive and waffling on major issues, the Plumas County Board of Supervisors delivered a strong message last week: There are no sacred cows when it comes to the county budget.

The board sent the message in the form of a politically risky decision to cut $800,000 from the county’s general-fund contribution to the sheriff and probation departments for the fiscal 2012-13 budget.

Northeastern California is in flames, and for many Lassen and Plumas, Tehama, Shasta and Modoc county residents, ranchers, farmers, homeowners and landowners, a group of brave and dedicated firefighters is the only defense standing between them and a heart-wrenching and devastating wall of fire.

These teams of firefighters — from the men and women on the blackened ground with hand tools to the fire engine and water tender drivers to the heavy equipment operators to the management teams that direct the fire-fighting efforts to the folks who manage the communications — come from our own local fire districts, from state and federal agencies and from fire departments all across the United States.