[GunGeezer]

I received a letter in this mornings mail from the St. Petersburg police dept. stating that the City Council passed a resolution requiring residents who have alarm systems to pay a $15.00 start-up fee and a $10.00 annual fee or face large penalties for not reporting active alarm systems.

I can see assessing some sort of fine for nuisance false alarms, but one would think responding to a real alarm in progress would make the job of the police easier than after the fact. Also, the last time I looked, I was paying a pretty hefty tax for police protection with or without an alarm system.

There was no explanation for the rationale for the new fee. It doesn't even sound as if it is legal and not discriminatory, not to mention taxation without representation.

I'm going to look into hiring Blackwater to protect my property as it might be cheaper than the new tax on a tax. What a country?:argue:

 

[SAMI]

Ridiculous!

 

[Der Alte]

If you only knew how many false alarms with home systems they have to respond to you would probably think differently.

 

[jjkjr]

If you only knew how many false alarms with home systems they have to respond to you would probably think differently.

+1 it is an eye opening......... way to many, could be why you cant get a cop when you need them they are responding to false alarms. just a thought.

 

[Jcabin]

There was no explanation for the rationale for the new fee. It doesn't even sound as if it is legal and not discriminatory, not to mention taxation without representation.

Sorry bro, YOU FAIL. This is obviously a local ordinance that was passed by your commissioners or township. You could have attended these meetings, you could have voiced your opinion, you could have had the vote turned down by letting your ELECTED officials hear you and your fellow citizens.

instead you choose to do nothing, and then ***** and moan about it.
"it's taxation without representation man, hahha" Yeah, who's the one laughing?

 

[Tmag]

Just when you thought it was safe to bend over the bureaucrats find a new way to drive it home, it’s just ludicrous

 

[Guns and more]

If you only knew how many false alarms with home systems they have to respond to you would probably think differently.

So why not make it a fine for a false alarm? Let the users pay.
We all know what this is. It's a tax on those who can afford an alarm.
I'd venture to say the St. Pete police spend a greater portion of their time in South St. Pete, where no one has an alarm. (and crime is rampant.)
How about a tax on those people?

 

[pelletm]

I had 2 false alarms on my system in Manatee County. First one was free and the second there was a fine associated with it. Fairly steep from what I recall. Both false alarms turned out to be equipment so I called to explain. The fellow I talked to at the Sheriffs Dept was really nice about it and told me to get a letter from the monitoring company saying it was their fault. What he said was that it would reset the clock on my violations. I thought it was fair.

 

[SIXTO]

I agree, I don't like paying more to the Gub'ment than I have too. But, alarm systems are more of a PIA to police than they are a help. Let me explain;

First, most monitoring companies are horrible at their jobs. It might take them 20 minutes or longer to call the police. Then add response times... you get the picture.
Second, by a large margin, the alarms police respond to are false. That takes a ton of time and manpower off the hands of a police department.
Third, try getting a hold of a homeowner when their alarm is wailing at 3am and they are out of town. Or, the alarm goes off because the owner left a door open, the cat out or the A/C is blowing the kids birthday balloons around. Again, the police have to either find a way to secure your home, or wait around until the owner shows up. That is very time consuming.

Maybe, just maybe, these fee's are a administrative fee that will allow them to collect some contact information such as cell phone numbers or maybe a trusted neighbor that can secure your home or shut off the alarm that is waking the dead if you are out of town. Or lets say your home really was broke into. Time is crucial to get you back so you can tell the police what is missing. For ten bucks a year, I'd say that is a bargain.



But please do explain the taxation without representation comment... I don't see it.

 

[cvhoss]

I've had a professional alarm system (no ADT) in my business for over 20 years. While we have very few false alarms, they do happen. I really don't see $10.00 a year to be an unreasonable cost associated with an alarm system. That's probably only a small fraction of what you pay for monitoring fees and all they have to do is place a phone call to the police. If your city wanted to charge you $50.00 a month, that would be one thing but $10.00 a year?

And as someone else already pointed out, since your elected officials passed the ordinance, it most definitely isn't taxation without representation. As far as already paying for protection, I pay a pretty hefty tax bill every year but if I have to call the county ambulance service, they still send me a bill for $1500.00.

Hoss

 

[mcp1810]

My old department responded to an average of ( I think it was) 100,000 alarm calls per year. Of those about 1% turned out to be actual or attempted break ins. One of the things that annoyed me to no end was the fact that the alarm companies were taking in literally millions of dollars for "our" work. As a resident of the county I worked for it really ticked me off when I thought about how many man hours, how much gasoline, wear and tear on the cruisers etc. my taxes were paying for to answer those false alarms. Alarm calls accounted for almost 1/8 of our calls for service. And each of those calls were responded to by two officers.
Think about that. If those numbers were typical across the country one sixth or so of you police department is essentially working for the alarm companies at no cost to the alarm companies. The taxpayers are footing the bill for that.
Until the alarm companies start having their own employees respond to check on alarms, and then calling the police only for verified break ins, I have no problem with alarm permits and fees.

 

[Guns and more]

I have no problem with alarm permits and fees.

You are missing the point!
Why should I pay a tax for something I don't use.
If my alarm never has a false signal, why am I being charged?
Charge by the false alarms, not by taxing everyone.

It's like the police saying, "We have to arrest crack dealers, so we're charging grandmothers for our time. NO, NO, NO!

This St. Pete thing is nothing more than a money grab, and I'll bet the money won't go to the police anyway.

 

[SIXTO]

You might use it. You pay for police and fire, schools etc. All that stuff you might not use, but you see the need to pay for it, right?

Anyway, your questions are probably better asked at the next city council meeting.

 

[ImaShepardRU]

First they register cars.
Then they register boats.
Then they register airplanes.
Then they even register guns.
Now they want to register alarms.
What next, will they want to register people.
Wait, they already do that!
:image035:

 

[BigStick]

In our city, the first false alarm is free, the second is $50 and the third and following are more. This seems to make sense to me, but I would be upset about a blanket fee for having an alarm.

How about this. Guns cause injuries that hospitals have to pay for since the thugs don't have insurrance (yet - thanks a lot Obama Ried and Pelosi :twak So we should charge a fee to all gun owners to pay for the negligence of those who get shot. I know it's not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea. Charging a fee for something that might happen is just another tax on the people.

 

[cvhoss]

You are missing the point!
1. Why should I pay a tax for something I don't use.
2. If my alarm never has a false signal, why am I being charged?
3. Charge by the false alarms, not by taxing everyone.

It's like the police saying, "We have to arrest crack dealers, so we're charging grandmothers for our time. NO, NO, NO!

This St. Pete thing is nothing more than a money grab, and I'll bet the money won't go to the police anyway.

I won't try to address the issues of what the city will actually do with the money. I'll try to give my opinion on what I've numbered.

1. It would appear obvious that false alarms are a problem. Not only in your city but everywhere. Your city has enacted this ordinance in an effort to deal with the associated costs of those false alarms. They basically have two choices. Raise taxes for everyone or charge those who are causing the problems. If I'm your next door neighbor and I don't have an alarm system, why should I be taxed? If you have an alarm, you will eventually have a false alarm. If I don't have one, there's no chance I'll create a false alarm signal. I've lived in my current home for 32 years and I've never had a fire but my taxes still support the fire department. Should I ask for a refund?

2. Believe me, if your system has any kind of glass breakage, motion sensor, infrared detection, etc., you will have a false alarm. Kind of like dieing. You may not know when, but you will eventually die. We all do.

3. If you can accept the fact that you will eventually have a false alarm, it's time to ask yourself which is worse. A $10.00 a year fee because you have an alarm or a $500.00 fee each time you have a false alarm. If they were to say O.K., we'll just charge each false alarm a $500.00 fee, that would be 50 years worth of your $10.00 a year fees for each false alarm. If you get a mouse in your house and end up with 3 false alarms in the month before you catch/kill him, how happy would you be then.

My state charges me $37.50 a year for a license to carry a concealed handgun. A right that I believe I should be granted by the Constitution but they still charge for it.

Sorry, but a $10.00 a year fee for each alarm installation seems like a very negligible amount for the time the false alarms keep the police from doing much more important things.

Hoss

 

[mcp1810]

You are missing the point!
Why should I pay a tax for something I don't use.
If my alarm never has a false signal, why am I being charged?
Charge by the false alarms, not by taxing everyone.

It's like the police saying, "We have to arrest crack dealers, so we're charging grandmothers for our time. NO, NO, NO!

This St. Pete thing is nothing more than a money grab, and I'll bet the money won't go to the police anyway.

Congrats on your 1000th post!

As Sixto was saying the fees go to administrative costs for the responding agencies. The way our computer aided dispatch system was set up, alarm calls were entered into the system by the permit number. Someone has to collect all the information and enter it into the C.A.D. system. For the fire department side of the response they will note if there are disabled family members, pets, special hazards at the address.

We allowed ( I think) two false alarms per year before we started fining. After that it was a progressive system starting at $50 and going up to $500 per false alarm. That is not per "incident". That is per call for service from the alarm company.

I remember one family over a memorial day weekend earned themselves over $15,000 in fines. No keyholders on the account, only the home phone listed for the family. Their system had an AWSOME siren on it. They were very popular with their neighbors too!

If you didn't register your alarm we would not respond unless it was a panic alarm or ,for a burglar alarm you had to have a keyholder on site. And you would get something like a $250 fine for your unregistered alarm.

 

[Hopyard]

"Originally Posted by Guns and more
You are missing the point!
Why should I pay a tax for something I don't use."

Gee, like that doesn't happen all the time to everyone in one way or another.

No kids? Why should I pay school taxes?

Never used 911 in my life? Why should I pay the tax that keeps it operating.

They just repaved my neighbor's street. I never go over there. Why should my tax dollars be used?

Your city council made a determination on how they will fund the expenses of false alarms. So? Why is that a problem?

Why the remark about "taxation without representation? You did vote in the last election or you were eligible to vote, no?

BTW, the fee sounds like a bargain to me. As someone else pointed out it beats a $500 fine for the inevitable false alarm.

 

[mcgyver210]

I think of it as just another TAX & nothing more. My city doesn't have a TAX on alarms yet but I can see it coming since the current Mayor decided the tax money was no longer enough & now we pay the same rate we would pay a for profit business for Trash pickup in our Water bill even if we really don't use it.

Although in our city some do pay for an Alarm sticker because of the confusion of our city that has no Alarm Tax & the Metropolitan Government that has an Alarm Tax.

In all the 19 years I have had an Alarm I can count on one hand how many times it has been activated & they weren't all False alarms.

I wonder how many more calls they would go on if there wasn't Alarms? Funny how no one mentions those statistics when Taxing the Alarms. I bet there would be more break ins without alarms just like I bet there would be more crimes committed if the current dictatorship gets its way & removes our Guns.

 

[Guns and more]

If I had an alarm in St. Pete, I'd cancel the service. First you pay for the monitoring, then you pay because you have monitoring.
I'd just let the siren wail! If the cops come by, fine, if not the neighbors have a keen eye.

You pay for police and fire, schools etc.

Yep. I pay for Police, and I've never called.
I pay for fire and I've never had a fire.
I pay for schools, and I pay the same as someone with 10 kids. (I have none)
I'm paying for a stadium I never buy a ticket to
I pay for an Aquarium I've been to once.
I pay for a preforming art center that I've been to twice.

All these things are good, but I'm not the bottomless pit politicians think I am.
Where is it written that the city never has to do with less, but I do.

Enough is enough. NO MORE TAXES.